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HILAIRE BELLOC 

H 

THE AFTERMATH 

or 

GLEANINGS FROM A BUSY LIFE 

CALLED UPON THE OUTER COVER 

Jfar purposes tft %ah 

CALIBAN'S GUIDE TO LETTERS 

By H. B. 



NEW YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & CO. 






«ir FURTHER AND YET MORE WEIGHTY 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

" . . . We found it very tedious. . . ." — The 
Evening German. 

(The devil " we" did ! "We " was once a private in a line 
regiment, drummed out for receiving stolen goods). 

"... We cannot see what Dr. Caliban's Guide 
is driving at." — The Daily American. 
(It is driving at you). 

"... What? Again? . . ." — The Edinburgh 
Review. 

" . . . On y retrouve a chaque page l'orgueil et 
lase*cheresseAnglaise. . . ." — M.Hyppolite Durand, 
writing in Le Journal of Paris. 

" . . . O Angleterre ! He merveilleuse ! C'est 
done toujours de toi que sortiront la Justice et la 
Verite. . . ." — M. Charmant Reinach, writing in 
the Horreur of Geneva. 

"... Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate." 
— Signor Y. Ilabrimo (of Palermo), writing in the 
Tribuna of Rome. 

" iroWa ra Setva tcovSev avdpdtiTov heivorcpov 
TriXei." — M. Negridepopoulos de Worms, writing 
in The " to Secvov " of Athens. 

" ! ! Stft&D- — The Banner of Israel. 

" ! " — The Times of London. 



))?£> 






7-0 

CATHERINE, MRS. CALIBAN, 

BUT FOR WHOSE FRUITFUL SUGGESTION, EVER-READY SYMPATHY, 

POWERS OF OBSERVATION, KINDLY CRITICISM, UNFLINCHING 

COURAGE, CATHOLIC LEARNING, AND NONE THE LESS 

CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE, 

THIS BOOK MIGHT AS WELL NOT HAVE BEEN 
WRITTEN; 

IT IS DEDICATED 

BY 

HER OBEDIENT AND GRATEFUL SERVANT AND FRIEND 
IN AFFLICTION, 

THE AUTHOR. 



"O, Man; with what tremors as of earth-begettings hast thou not wrought % 
O, Man ! — Yet— is it utterly indeed of thee— 9 . Did there not toil in it also 
that World-Man, or haply was there not Some Other? . . . . O, Man ! 
knowest thou that word Some Other ?"— Carlyle's " Frederick the Great," 



Most of these sketches are reprinted from "The 
Speaker," and appear in this form by the kind per- 
mission of its Editor. 



ERRATA AND ADDENDA. 

P. 19, line 14 (from the top), for " enteric" read "esoteric." 

P. 73, second footnote, for " Sophia, Lady Gowl," read " Lady 
Sophia Gowl." 

P. 277 (line 5 from bottom), for " the charming prospect of such 
a bribe? read "Bride." 

P. 456, delete all references to Black-mail, passim. 

P. 510 (line 6 from top), for " Chou-fleur? read " Chauffeur." 

Direction to Printer.— Please print hard, strong, clear, 
straight, neat, clean, and well. Try and avoid those little black 
smudges ! 



PREFACE. 

This work needs no apology. 

Its value to the English-speaking world is two- 
fold. It preserves for all time, in the form of a 
printed book, what might have been scattered in the 
sheets of ephemeral publications. It is so designed 
that these isolated monuments of prose and verse 
can be studied, absorbed, and, if necessary, copied 
by the young aspirant to literary honours. 

Nothing is Good save the Useful, and it would 
have been sheer vanity to have published so small 
a selection, whatever its merit, unless it could be 
made to do Something, to achieve a Result in this 
strenuous modern world. It will not be the fault of 
the book, but of the reader, if no creative impulse 
follows its perusal, and the student will have but 
himself to blame if, with such standards before him, 
and so lucid and thorough an analysis of modern 



Vlll. PREFACE 

Literature and of its well-springs, he does not attain 
the goal to which the author would lead him. 

The book will be found conveniently divided into 
sections representing the principal divisions of modern 
literary activity ; each section will contain an intro- 
ductory essay, which will form a practical guide to 
the subject with which it deals, and each will be 
adorned with one or more examples of the finished 
article, which, if the instructions be carefully followed, 
should soon be turned out without difficulty by any 
earnest and industrious scholar of average ability. 

If the Work can raise the income of but one poor 
journalist, or produce earnings, no matter how insig- 
nificant, for but one of that great army which is now 
compelled to pay for the insertion of its compositions 
in the newspapers and magazines, the labour and 
organizing ability devoted to it will not have been 
in vain. 



INTRODUCTION. 

A Gratejul Sketch of the Author's Friend (in part the 

producer of this book), 

James Caliban. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Few men have pursued more honourably, more use- 
fully, or more successfully the career of letters than 
Thomas Caliban, D.D., of Winchelthorpe-on-Sea, 
near Portsmouth. Inheriting, as his name would 
imply, the grand old Huguenot strain, his father was 
a Merchant Taylor of the City of London, and prin- 
cipal manager of the Anglo-Chilian Bank; his mother 
the fifth daughter of K. Muller, Esq., of Brighton, 
a furniture dealer and reformer of note in the early 
forties. 

The connection established between my own family 
and that of Dr. Caliban I purposely pass over as not 
germane to the ensuing pages, remarking only that 
the friendship, guidance, and intimacy of such a man 
will ever count among my chiefest treasures. Of 
him it may truly be written : " He tnaketh them to 
shine like Sharon; the waters are his in RamShaid, and 
Gilgath praiseth him. 11 

I could fill a volume of far greater contents than 
has this with the mere record of his every-day acts 
during the course of his long and active career. I 
must content myself, in this sketch, with a bare 
summary of his habitual deportment. He would rise 

B— 2 



4 THE AFTERMATH 

in the morning, and after a simple but orderly toilet 
would proceed to family prayers, terminating the 
same with a hymn, of which he would himself read 
each verse in turn, to be subsequently chanted by the 
assembled household. To this succeeded breakfast, 
which commonly consisted of ham, eggs, coffee, tea, 
toast, jam, and what-not — in a word, the appurte- 
nances of a decent table. 

Breakfast over, he would light a pipe (for he did 
not regard indulgence in the weed as immoral, still 
less as un- Christian : the subtle word iniet/ceia, 
which he translated " sweet reasonableness," was 
painted above his study door — it might have served 
for the motto of his whole life), he would light a pipe, 
I say, and walk round his garden, or, if it rained, 
visit the plants in his conservatory. 

Before ten he would be in his study, seated at a 
large mahogany bureau, formerly the property of Sir 
Charles Henby, of North-chapel, and noon would still 
find him there, writing in his regular and legible hand 
the notes and manuscripts which have made him 
famous, or poring over an encyclopaedia, the more 
conscientiously to review some book with which he 
had been entrusted. 

After the hours so spent, it was his habit to take a 
turn in the fresh air, sometimes speaking to the gar- 
dener, and making the round of the beds ; at others 
passing by the stables to visit his pony Bluebell, or 
to pat upon the head his faithful dog Ponto, now 
advanced in years and suffering somewhat from the 
mange. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

To this light exercise succeeded luncheon, for him 
the most cheerful meal of the day. It was then that 
his liveliest conversation was heard, his closest friends 
entertained: the government, the misfortunes of 
foreign nations, the success of our fiscal policy, our 
maritime supremacy, the definition of the word " gen- 
tleman," occasionally even a little bout of theology — 
a thousand subjects fell into the province of his genial 
criticism and extensive information ; to each his 
sound judgment and ready apprehension added some 
new light ; nor were the ladies of the family incom- 
petent to follow the gifted table talk of their father, 
husband, brother, master,* and host.f 

Until the last few years the hour after lunch was 
occupied with a stroll upon the terrace, but latterly 
he would consume it before the fire in sleep, from 
which the servants had orders to wake him by three 
o'clock. At this hour he would take his hat and stick 
and proceed into the town, where his sunny smile and 
friendly salute were familiar to high and low. A 
visit to the L.N.C. School, a few purchases, perhaps 
even a call upon the vicar (for Dr. Caliban was with- 
out prejudice— the broadest of men), would be the 
occupation of the afternoon, from which he returned 
to tea in the charming drawing-room of 48, Hender- 
son Avenue. 

It was now high time to revisit his study. He was 

* The governess invariably took her meals with the family. 

+ Miss Bowley, though practically permanently resident in the 
family, was still but a guest — a position which she never forgot, 
though Dr. Caliban forbad a direct allusion to the fact. 



6 THE AFTERMATH 

at work by six, and would write steadily till seven. 
Dinner, the pleasant conversation that succeeds it in 
our English homes, perhaps an innocent round game, 
occupied the evening till a gong for prayers announced 
the termination of the day. Dr. Caliban made it a 
point to remain the last up, to bolt the front door, 
to pour out his own whiskey, and to light his own 
candle before retiring. It was consonant with his 
exact and thoughtful nature, by the way, to have this 
candle of a patent sort, pierced down the middle to 
minimise the danger from falling grease ; it was more- 
over surrounded by a detachable cylinder of glass.* 

Such was the round of method which, day by day 
and week by week, built up the years of Dr. Caliban's 
life ; but life is made up of little things, and, to quote 
a fine phrase of his own : " It is the hourly habits of 
a man that build up his character." He also said (in 
his address to the I. C. B. Y.) : " Show me a man 
hour by hour in his own home, from the rising of the 
sun to his going down, and I will tell you what man- 
ner of man he is." I have always remembered the 
epigram, and have acted upon it in the endeavour to 
portray the inner nature of its gifted author. 

I should, however, be giving but an insufficient 
picture of Dr. Caliban were I to leave the reader with 
no further impression of his life work, or indeed of 
the causes which have produced this book. 

His father had left him a decent competence. He 



* Such as are sold and patented by my friend Mr. Gapethorn, of 
362, Fetter Lane. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

lay, therefore, under no necessity to toil for his living. 
Nevertheless, that sense of duty, " through which 
the eternal heavens are fresh and strong " (Words- 
worth), moved him to something .more than "the 
consumption of the fruits of the earth " (Horace). 
He preached voluntarily and without remuneration 
for some years to the churches in Cheltenham, and 
having married Miss Bignor, of Winchelthorpe- 
on-Sea, purchased a villa in that rising southern 
watering-place, and received a call to the congre- 
gation, which he accepted. He laboured there till 
his recent calamity. 

I hardly know where to begin the recital of his 
numerous activities in the period of thirty-five years 
succeeding his marriage. With the pen he was inde- 
fatigable. A man more 7rot/aAo? — or, as he put it, 
many-sided — perhaps never existed. There was little 
he would not touch, little upon which he was not 
consulted, and much in which, though anonymous, 
he was yet a leader. 

He wrote regularly, in his earlier years, for The 
Seventh Monarchy, The Banner, The Christian, The Free 
Trader, HouseJtold Words, Good Words, The Quiver, 
Chatterbox, The Home Circle, and The Sunday Monitor. 
During the last twenty years his work has continually 
appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Siecle, 
and the Tribuna. In the last two his work was trans- 
lated. 

His political effect was immense, and that though 
he never acceded to the repeated request that he 
would stand upon one side or the other as a candidate 



8 THE AFTERMATH 

for Parliament. He remained, on the contrary, to 
the end of his career, no more than president of a 
local association. It was as a speaker, writer, and 
preacher, that his ideas spread outwards ; thousands 
certainly now use political phrases which they may 
imagine their own, but which undoubtedly sprang 
from his creative brain. He was perhaps not the 
first, but one of the first, to apply the term " Anglo- 
Saxon" to the English-speaking race — with which 
indeed he was personally connected through his rela- 
tives in New Mexico. The word " Empire " occurs 
in a sermon of his as early as 1869. He was contem- 
porary with Mr. Lucas, if not before him, in the 
phrase, " Command of the sea " : and I find, in a 
letter to Mrs. Gorch, written long ago in 1873, the 
judgment that Protection was " no longer," and the 
nationalization of land " not yet," within " the sphere 
of practical politics." 

If his influence upon domestic politics was in part 
due to his agreement with the bulk of his fellow- 
citizens, his attitude in foreign affairs at least was all 
his own. Events have proved it wonderfully sound. 
A strenuous opponent of American slavery as a very 
young man — in i860 — he might be called, even at 
that age, the most prominent Abolitionist in Wor- 
cestershire, and worked indefatigably for the cause in 
so far as it concerned this country. A just and chari- 
table man, he proved, after the victory of the North, 
one of the firmest supporters in the press of what he 
first termed " an Anglo-American entente" Yet he 
was not for pressing matters. He would leave the 



INTRODUCTION 9 

" gigantic daughter of the West " to choose her hour 
and time, confident in the wisdom of his daughter's 
judgment, and he lived to see, before his calamity fell 
upon him, Mr. Hanna, Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Elihu 
Root, and Mr. Smoot occupying the positions they 
still adorn. 

He comprehended Europe. It was he who pro- 
phesied of the Dual Monarchy (I believe in the Con- 
temporary Review), that " the death of Francis Joseph 
would be the signal for a great upheaval"; he that 
applied to Italy the words "clericalism is the enemy" ; 
and he that publicly advised the withdrawal of our 
national investments from the debt of Spain — " a 
nation in active decay." He cared not a jot when 
his critics pointed out that Spanish fours had risen 
since his advice no less than 20 per cent., while 
our own consols had fallen by an equal amount. 
" The kingdom I serve," he finely answered, " knows 
nothing of the price of stock." And indeed the greater 
part of his fortune was in suburban rents, saving a 
small sum unfortunately adventured in Shanghai 
Telephones. 

Russia he hated as the oppressor of Finland and 
Poland, for oppression he loathed and combatted 
wherever it appeared ; nor had Mr. Arthur Balfour a 
stronger supporter than he when that statesman, 
armed only in the simple manliness of an English 
Christian and Freeman, combatted and destroyed the 
terrorism that stalked through Ireland. 

Of Scandinavia he knew singularly little, but that 
little was in its favour; and as for the German 



IO THE AFTERMATH 

Empire, his stanzas to Prince Bismarck, and his 
sermon on the Emperor's recent visit, are too well 
known to need any comment here. To Holland he 
was, until recently, attracted. Greece he despised. 

Nowhere was this fine temper of unflinching courage 
and sterling common sense more apparent than in the 
great crisis of the Dreyfus case. No man stood up 
more boldly, or with less thought of consequence, for 
Truth and Justice in this country. He was not 
indeed the chairman of the great meeting in St. 
James' Hall, but his peroration was the soul of that 
vast assemblage. " England will yet weather the 
storm. . . ." It was a true prophecy, and in a 
sense a confession of Faith. 

There ran through his character a vein of something 
steady and profound, which inspired all who came 
near him with a sense of quiet persistent strength. 
This, with an equable, unfailing pressure, restrained 
or controlled whatever company surrounded him. It 
was like the regular current of a full but silent tide, 
or like the consistent power of a good helmsman. It 
may be called his personal force. To most men and 
women of our circle, that force was a sustenance 
and a blessing ; to ill-regulated or worldly men with 
whom he might come in contact, it acted as a salu- 
tary irritant, though rarely to so intense a degree 
as to give rise to scenes. I must unfortunately 
except the case of the Rural Dean of Bosham, whose 
notorious excess was the more lamentable from the 
fact that the Council of the S.P.C.A. is strictly 
non-sectarian, and whose excuse that the ink-pot was 



INTRODUCTION 1 1 

not thrown but brushed aside is, to speak plainly, a 
tergiversation. 

The recent unhappy war in South Africa afforded an 
excellent opportunity for the exercise of the qualities 
I mean. He was still active and alert ; still guiding 
men and maidens during its worse days. His tact 
was admirable. He suffered from the acute divisions 
of his congregation, but he suffered in powerful 
silence ; and throughout those dark-days his sober 
necquid nimis* was like a keel and ballast for us all. 

A young radical of sorts was declaiming at his 
table one evening against the Concentration Camp. 
Dr. Caliban listened patiently, and at the end of the 
harangue said gently, " Shall we join the ladies?" 
The rebuke was not lost.t 

On another occasion, when some foreigner was re- 
ported in the papers as having doubted Mr. Brodrick's 
figures relative to the numbers of the enemy remaining 
in the field, Dr. Caliban said with quiet dignity, " It 
is the first time I have heard the word of an English 
gentleman doubted." 

It must not be imagined from these lines that he 
defended the gross excesses of the London mob — 
especially in the matter of strong waters — or that he 
wholly approved of our policy. " Peace in our time, 
Oh, Lord/" was his constant cry, and against mili- 
tarism he thundered fearlessly. I have heard him 

* Petronius. 

t The Ladies were Mrs. Caliban, Miss Rachel and Miss Aletheia 
Caliban, Miss Bowley, Miss Goucher, and Lady Robinson, 



12 THE AFTERMATH 

apply to it a word that never passed his lips in any 
other connection — the word Damnable. 

On the details of the war, the policy of annexa- 
tion, the advisability of frequent surrenders, the high 
salaries of irregulars, and the employment of national 
scouts, he was silent. In fine, one might have applied 
to him the strong and simple words of Lord Jacobs, 
in his Guildhall speech.* One main fact stood out — 
he hated warfare. He was a man of peace. 

The tall, broad figure, inclining slightly to obesity, 
the clear blue northern eyes, ever roaming from point 
to point as though seeking for grace, the familiar soft 
wideawake, the long full white beard, the veined 
complexion and dark-gloved hands, are now, alas, re- 
moved from the sphere they so long adorned. 

Dr. Caliban's affliction was first noticed by his 
family at dinner on the first of last September — a 
date which fell by a strange and unhappy coincidence 
on a Sunday. For some days past Miss Goucher 
had remarked his increasing volubility ; but on this 
fatal evening, in spite of all the efforts of his wife and 
daughters, he continued to speak, without interrup- 
tion, from half-past seven to a quarter-past nine ; and 
again, after a short interval, till midnight, when he 
fell into an uneasy sleep, itself full of mutterings. 
His talk had seemed now a sermon, now the remi- 
niscence of some leading article, now a monologue, 
but the whole quite incoherent, though delivered 
with passionate energy ; nor was it the least dis- 

* " It is enough for me that I am an Englishman." 



INTRODUCTION 1 3 

tressing feature of his malady that he would tolerate 
no reply, nay, even the gentlest assent drove him into 
paroxysms of fury. 

Next day he began again in the manner of a debate 
at the local Liberal Club, soon lapsing again into a 
sermon, and anon admitting snatches of strange songs 
into the flow of his words. Towards eleven he was 
apparently arguing with imaginary foreigners, and 
shortly afterwards the terrible scene was ended by 
the arrival of a medical man of his own persuasion. 

It is doubtful whether Dr. Caliban will ever be 
able to leave Dr. Charlbury's establishment, but all 
that can be done for him in his present condition is 
lovingly and ungrudgingly afforded. There has even 
been provided for him at considerable expense, and 
after an exhaustive search, a companion whose per- 
sistent hallucination it is that he is acting as private 
secretary to some leader of the Opposition, and the 
poor wild soul is at rest. 

Such was the man who continually urged upon 
me the necessity of compiling some such work as 
that which now lies before the reader. He had him- 
self intended to produce a similar volume, and had he 
done so I should never have dared to enter the same 
field ; but I feel that in his present incapacity I am, as 
it were, fulfilling a duty when I trace in these few 
pages the plan which he so constantly counselled, 
and with such a man counsels were commands. If I 
may be permitted to dwell upon the feature more 
especially his own in this Guide, I will point to the 
section " On Vivid Historical Literature in its Appli- 



14 THE AFTERMATH 

cation to Modern Problems," and furthermore, to the 
section M On the Criticism and Distinction of Works 
Attributed to Classical Authors." In the latter case 
the examples chosen were taken from his own large 
collection ; for it was a hobby of his to purchase 
as bargains manuscripts and anonymous pamphlets 
which seemed to him to betray the hand of some 
master. Though I have been compelled to differ from 
my friend, and cannot conscientiously attribute the 
specimens I have chosen to William Shakespeare or 
to Dean Swift, yet I am sure the reader will agree 
with me that the error into which Dr. Caliban fell 
was that of no ordinary mind. 

Finally, let me offer to his family, and to his nume- 
rous circle, such apologies as may be necessary for 
the differences in style, and, alas, I fear, sometimes 
in mode of thought, between the examples which I 
have chosen as models for the student and those 
which perhaps would have more powerfully attracted 
the sympathies of my preceptor himself. I am well 
aware that such a difference is occasionally to be dis- 
covered. I can only plead in excuse that men are 
made in very different ways, and that the disciple 
cannot, even if he would, forbid himself a certain 
measure of self-development. Dr. Caliban's own 
sound and broad ethics would surely have demanded 
it of no one, and I trust that this solemn reference to 
his charity and genial toleration will put an end to 
the covert attacks which some of those who should 
have been the strongest links between us have seen 
fit to make in the provincial and religious press. 



DIVISION I. 
REVIEWING. 



REVIEWING. 

The ancient and honourable art of Reviewing is, 
without question, the most important branch of that 
great calling which we term the " Career of Letters." 

As it is the most important, so also it is the first 
which a man of letters should learn. It is at once 
his shield and his weapon. A thorough knowledge of 
Reviewing, both theoretical and applied, will give a, 
man more popularity or power than he could have- 
attained by the expenditure of a corresponding energy I 
in any one of the liberal professions, with the possible 
exception of Municipal politics. 

It forms, moreover, the foundation upon which all 
other literary work may be said to repose. Involving, 
as it does, the reading of a vast number of volumes, 
and the thorough mastery of a hundred wholly different 
subjects ; training one to rapid, conclusive judgment, 
and to the exercise of a kind of immediate power of 
survey, it vies with cricket in forming the character 
of an Englishman. It is interesting to know that 
Charles Hawbuck was for some years principally 
occupied in Reviewing; and to this day some of 
our most important men will write, nay, and sign, 
reviews, as the press of the country testifies upon 
every side. 

It is true that the sums paid for this species of 

c 



1 8 THE AFTERMATH 

literary activity are not large, and it is this fact which 
has dissuaded some of our most famous novelists and 
poets of recent years from undertaking Reviewing of 
any kind. But the beginner will not be deterred by 
such a consideration, and he may look forward, by 
way of compensation, to the ultimate possession of a 
large and extremely varied library, the accumulation 
of the books which have been given him to review. 
I have myself been presented with books of which 
individual volumes were sometimes worth as much 
as forty-two shillings to buy. 

Having said so much of the advantages of this 
initial and fundamental kind of writing, I will pro- 
ceed to a more exact account of its dangers and 
difficulties, and of the processes inherent to its manu- 
facture. 

It is clear, in the first place, that the Reviewer must 
regard herself as the servant of the public, and of her 
employer ; and service, as I need hardly remind her 
(or him), has nothing in it dishonourable. We were 
all made to work, and often the highest in the land 
are the hardest workers of all. This character of 
service, of which Mr. Ruskin has written such noble 
things, will often lay the Reviewer under the necessity 
of a sharp change of opinion, and nowhere is the art 
a better training in morals and application than in 
the habit it inculcates of rapid and exact obedience, 
coupled with the power of seeing every aspect of a 
thing, and of insisting upon that particular aspect 
which will give most satisfaction to the common- 
wealth. 



REVIEWING 19 

It may not be uninstructive if I quote here the 
adventures of one of the truest of the many stout- 
hearted men I have known, one indeed who recently 
died in harness reviewing Mr. Garcke's article on 
Electrical Traction in the supplementary volumes of 
the Encyclopedia Britannica. This gentleman was once 
sent a book to review; the subject, as he had re- 
ceived no special training in it, might have deterred 
one less bound by the sense of duty. This book was 
called The Snail: Its Habitat, Food, Customs, Virtues, 
Vices, and Future. It was, as its title would imply, a 
monograph upon snails, and there were many fine 
coloured prints, showing various snails occupied in 
feeding on the leaves proper to each species. It also 
contained a large number of process blocks, showing 
sections, plans, elevations, and portraits of snails, as 
well as detailed descriptions (with diagrams) of the 
ears, tongues, eyes, hair, and nerves of snails. It 
was a comprehensive and remarkable work. 

My friend (whose name I suppress for family 
reasons) would not naturally have cared to review 
this book. He saw that it involved the assumption 
of a knowledge which he did not possess, and that 
some parts of the book might require very close 
reading. It numbered in all 1532 pages, but this was 
including the index and the preface. 

He put his inclinations to one side, and took the 
book with him to the office of the newspaper from 
which he had received it, where he was relieved to 
hear the Editor inform him that it was not necessary 
to review the work in any great detail. " Moreover," 

c— 2 



20 THE AFTERMATH 

he added, " I don't think you need praise it too 
much." 

On hearing this, the Reviewer, having noted down 
the price of the book and the name of the publisher, 
wrote the following words— which, by the way, the 
student will do well to cut out and pin upon his wall, 
as an excellent example of what a " short notice " 
should be : — 

"The Snail: Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 
21s. 6d. 
" This is a book that will hardly add to the reputation 
of its author. There is evidence of detailed work, and 
even of conscientious research in several places, but the 
author has ignored or misunderstood the whole teaching 
of and the special discoveries of 

and what is even more remarkable in a man of Mr. 
Charles' standing, he advances views which were already- 
exploded in the days of .", 

He then took an Encyclopaedia and filled up the 
blanks with the names of three great men who ap- 
peared, according to that work, to be the leaders in 
this branch of natural history. His duty thus tho- 
roughly accomplished and his mind at rest, he posted 
his review, and applied himself to lighter occupations. 

Next day, however, the Editor telephoned to him, 
to the effect that the notice upon which he had spent 
so much labour could not be used. 

" We have just received," said the Editor, " a page 
advertisement from Pschuffer. I would like a really 
good article, and you might use the book as a kind 
of peg on which to hang it. You might begin on the 
subject of snails, and make it something more like your 
'Oh/ my lost friend j 1 which has had such a success." 



REVIEWING 1 1 

On occasions such as these the beginner must 
remember to keep full possession of himself. 

Nothing in this mortal life is permanent, and the 
changes that are native to the journalistic career are 
perhaps the most startling and frequent of all those 
which threaten humanity. 

The Reviewer of whom I speak was as wise as 
he was honourable. He saw at once what was 
needed. He wrote another and much longer article, 
beginning — 

" The Snail : Its Habitat, &c. Adain Charles. 
Pschuffer. 21s. 6d. 
" There are tender days just before the Spring dares 
the adventure of the Channel, when our Kentish 
woods are prescient, as it were, of the South. It is 
calm . . ." 

and so forth, leading gradually up to snails, and 
bringing in the book here and there about every 
twentieth line. 

When this long article was done, he took it back 
to the office, and there found the Editor in yet a third 
mood. He was talking into the telephone, and begged 
his visitor to wait until he had done. My friend, 
therefore, took up a copy of the Spectator, and attempted 
to distract his attention with the masterful irony and 
hard crystalline prose of that paper. 

Soon the Editor turned to him and said that 
Pschuffer's had just let him know by the telephone 
that they would not advertise after all. 

It was now necessary to delete all that there might 
be upon snails in his article, to head the remainder 
" My Kentish Home," and to send it immediately to 



22 THE AFTERMATH 

" Life in the Open" This done, he sat down and 
wrote upon a scrap of paper in the office the following 
revised notice, which the Editor glanced at and 
approved : — 

" The Snail : Its Habiiai, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 
21s. 6d. 
"This work will, perhaps, appeal to specialists. This 
journal does not profess any capacity of dealing with it, 
but a glance at its pages is sufficient to show that it 
would be very ill-suited to ordinary readers. The illus- 
trations are not without merit/' 

Next morning he was somewhat perturbed to be 
called up again upon the telephone by the Editor, 
who spoke to him as follows : — 

"I am very sorry, but I have just learnt a most 
important fact. Adam Charles is standing in our 
interests at Biggleton. Lord Bailey will be on the 
platform. You must write a long and favourable 
review of the book before twelve to-day, and do try 
and say a little about the author." 

He somewhat wearily took up a sheet of paper and 
wrote what follows : — a passage which I must again 
recommend to the student as a very admirable speci- 
men of work upon these lines. 

" The Snail : Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 
21s. 6d. 
" This book comes at a most opportune moment. It is 
not generally known that Professor Charles was the first 
to point out the very great importance of the training of 
the mind in the education of children. It was in May, 
1875, that he made this point in the presence of Mr. 
Gladstone, who was so impressed by the mingled enlighten- 
ment and novelty of the view, that he wrote a long and 
interesting postcard upon the author to a friend of the 
present writer. Professor Charles may be styled — nay, he 



REVIEWING 23 

styles himself — a 'self-made man.' Born in Hudders- 
field of parents who were weavers in that charming 
northern city, he was early fascinated by the study of 
natural science, and was admitted to the Alexandrovna 
University. . . ." 

(And so on, and so on, out of " Who's Who. 1 ') 

" But this would not suffice for his growing genius." 

(And so on, and so on, out of the Series of Contemporary 

Agnostics.) 

" ... It is sometimes remarkable to men of less 
wide experience how such spirits find the mere time to 
achieve their prodigious results. Take, for example, this 
book on the Snail. * . ." 

And he continued in a fine spirit of praise, such as 
should be given to books of this weight and impor- 
tance, and to men such as he who had written it. 
He sent it by boy-messenger to the office. 

The messenger had but just left the house when 
the telephone rang again, and once more it was the 
Editor, who asked whether the review had been 
sent off. Knowing how dilatory are the run of 
journalists, my friend felt some natural pride in re- 
plying that he had indeed just despatched the article. 
The Editor, as luck would have it, was somewhat 
annoyed by this, and the reason soon appeared when 
he proceeded to say that the author was another 
Charles after all, and not the Mr. Charles who was 
standing for Parliament. He asked whether the 
original review could still be retained, in which the 
book, it will be remembered, had been treated with 
some severity. 

My friend permitted himself to give a deep sigh, 
but was courteous enough to answer as follows : — 



24 THE AFTERMATH 

" I am afraid it has been destroyed, but I shall be 
very happy to write another, and I will make it really 
scathing. You shall have it by twelve." 

It was under these circumstances that the review 
(which many of you must have read) took this final 
form, which I recommend even more heartily than 
any of the others to those who may peruse these 
pages for their profit, as well as for their instruction. 

" The Snail : Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuff er. 
21s. 6d. 
"We desire to have as little to do with this book as 
possible, and we should recommend some similar attitude 
to our readers. It professes to be scientific, but the harm 
books of this kind do is incalculable. It is certainly unfit 
for ordinary reading, and for our part we will confess that 
we have not read more than the first few words. They 
were quite sufficient to confirm the judgment which we 
have put before our readers, and they would have formed 
sufficient material for a lengthier treatment had we 
thought it our duty as Englishmen to dwell further upon 
the subject/' 

Let me now turn from the light parenthesis of 
illuminating anecdote to the sterner part of my task. 

We will begin at the beginning, taking the simplest 
form of review, and tracing the process of production 
through its various stages. 

It is necessary first to procure a few forms, such as 
are sold by Messrs. Chatsworthy in Chancery Lane, 
and Messrs. Goldman, of the Haymarket, in which 
all the skeleton of a review is provided, with blanks 
left for those portions which must, with the best will 
in the world, vary according to the book and the 
author under consideration. There are a large num- 
ber of these forms, and I would recommend the 



REVIEWING 



25 



student who is as yet quite a novice in the trade to 
select some forty of the most conventional, such as 
these on page 7 of the catalogue : — 

" Mr. has hardly seized the pure beauty of " 

" We cannot agree with Mr. in his estimate of " 

" Again, how admirable is the following : " 
At the same establishments can be procured very 
complete lists of startling words, which lend individu- 
ality and force to the judgment of the Reviewer. 
Indeed I believe that Mr. Goldman was himself the 
original patentee of these useful little aids, and among 
many before me at this moment I would recommend 
the following to the student : — 

/Absolute 
Immediate 
Creative 
Bestial 
Intense 

Authoritative I in Mr. — 's style. 
Ampitheatrical V Mrs. — *s 
Lapsed I Miss — 's 

Miggerlish 
Japhetic 
Accidental 
Alkaline 
^Zenotic 

Messrs. Mailing, of Duke Street, Soho, sell a par- 
ticular kind of cartridge paper and some special pins, 
gum, and a knife, called " The Reviewer's Outfit." 
I do not know that these are necessary, but they 
cost only a few pence, and are certainly of advantage 
in the final process : To wit : — Seizing firmly the book 



"There is some- , 
what of the*\ 



26 THE AFTERMATH 

to be reviewed, write down the title, price, publisher, 
and (in books other than anonymous) the author's 
name, at the top of the sheet of paper you have 
chosen. The book should then be taken in, both 
hands and opened sharply, with a gesture not easily 
described, but acquired with very little practice. The 
test of success is that the book should give a loud 
crack and lie open of itself upon the table before one. 
This initial process is technically called " breaking the 
back " of a book, but we need not trouble ourselves 
yet with technical terms. One of the pages so dis- 
closed should next be torn out and the word " extract " 
written in the corner, though not before such sen- 
tences have been deleted as will leave the remainder 
a coherent paragraph. In the case of historical and 
scientific work, the preface must be torn out bodily, 
the name of the Reviewer substituted for the word 
" I," and the whole used as a description of the work 
in question. What remains is very simple. The 
forms, extracts, &c, are trimmed, pinned, and gummed 
in order upon the cartridge paper (in some offices 
brown paper), and the whole is sent to press. 

I need hardly say that only the most elementary 
form of review can be constructed upon this model, 
but the simplest notice contains all the factors which 
enter into the most complicated and most serious of 
literary criticism and pronouncements. 

In this, as in every other practical trade, an ounce 
of example is worth a ton of precept, and I have 
much pleasure in laying before the student one of the 
best examples that has ever appeared in the weekly 



REVIEWING 27 

press of how a careful, subtle, just, and yet tender 
review, may be written. The complexity of the 
situation which called it forth, and the lightness of 
touch required for its successful completion, may be 
gauged by the fact that Mr. Mayhem was the nephew 
of my employer, had quarrelled with him at the 
moment when the notice was written, but will almost 
certainly be on good terms with him again ; he was 
also, as I privately knew, engaged to the daughter of 
a publisher who had shares in the works where the 
review was printed. 

A YOUNG POET IN DANGER. 

Mr. Mayhem's "Pereant qui Nostra." 

We fear that in " Pereant qui Nostra," Mr. Mayhem 
has hardly added to his reputation, and we might even 
doubt whether he was well advised to publish it at all. 
" Tufts in an Orchard " gave such promise, that the 
author of the exquisite lyrics it contained might easily 
have rested on the immediate fame that first effort 
procured him : 

" Lord, look to England ; England looks to you," 

and— 

" Great unaffected vampires and the moon," 

are lines the Anglo-Saxon race will not readily let die. 

In "Pereant qui Nostra," Mr. Mayhem preserves 
and even increases his old facility of expression, but 
there is a terrible falling-off in verbal aptitude. 

What are we to think of " The greatest general the 
world has seen" applied as a poetic description to 
Lord Kitchener ? Mr. Mayhem will excuse us if we 
say that the whole expression is commonplace. 

Commonplace thought is bad enough, though it is 
difiicult to avoid when one tackles a great national 



28 THE AFTERMATH 

subject, and thinks what all good patriots and men 
of sense think also. " Pom* etre poete," as M. Yves 
Guyot proudly said in his receptional address to the 
French Academy, "Pour etre poete on n'est pas force- 
ment aliene." But commonplace language should 
always be avoidable, and it is a fault which we cannot 
but admit we have found throughout Mr. Mayhem's 
new volume. Thus in " Laura " he compares a young 
goat to a " tender flower," and in " Billings " he calls 
some little children "the younglings of the flock." 
Again, he says of the waves at Dover in a gale that 
they are "horses all in rank, with manes of snow," 
and tells us in " Eton College " that the Thames 
" runs like a silver thread amid the green." 

All these similes verge upon the commonplace, even 
when they do not touch it. However, there is very 
genuine feeling in the description of his old school, 
and we have no doubt that the bulk of Etonians will 
see more in the poem than outsiders can possibly do. 

It cannot be denied that Mr. Mayhem has a powerful 
source of inspiration in his strong patriotism, and the 
sonnets addressed to Mr. Kruger, Mr. O'Brien, Dr. 
Clark, and General Mercier are full of vigorous denun- 
ciation. It is the more regrettable that he has missed 
true poetic diction and lost his subtlety in a misappre- 
hension of planes and values. 

" Vile, vile old man, and yet more vile again," 

is a line that we are sure Mr. Mayhem would recon- 
sider in his better moments : " more vile " than what ? 
Than himself ? The expression is far too vague. 

"Proud Prelate," addressed to General Mercier, must 
be a misprint, and it is a pity it should have slipped 
in. What Mr. Mayhem probably meant was " Proud 
Caesar " or " soldier," or some other dissyllabic title. 
The word prelate can properly only be applied to a 
bishop, a mitred abbot, or a vicar apostolic. 

"Babbler of Hell, importunate mad fiend, dead 
canker, crested worm," are vigorous and original, but 
do not save the sonnet. And as to the last two lines, 

" Nor seek to pierce the viewless shield of years, 
For that you certainly could never do," 



REVIEWING 29 

Mr. Mayhem must excuse us if we say that the order 
of the lines make a sheer bathos. 

Perhaps the faults and the excellences of Mr. May- 
hem, his fruitful limitations, and his energetic inspira- 
tions, can be best appreciated if we quote the following 
sonnet ; the exercise will also afford us the opportunity 
(which we are sure Mr. Mayhem will not resent in 
such an old friend) of pointing out the dangers into 
which his new tendencies may lead him. 

" England, if ever it should be thy fate 

By fortune's turn or accident of chance 
To fall from craven fears of being great, 

And in the tourney with dishevelled lance 
To topple headlong, and incur the Hate 

Of Spain, America, Germany, and France, 
What will you find upon that dreadful date 

To check the backward move of your advance ? 
A little Glory ; purchased not with gold 

Nor yet with Frankincense (the island blood 
Is incommensurate, neither bought nor sold), 

But on the poops where Drake and Nelson stood 
An iron hand, a stern unflinching eye 
To meet the large assaults of Destiny." 

Now, here is a composition that not everyone could 
have written. It is inspired by a vigorous patriotism, 
it strikes the right note (Mr. Mayhem is a Past Senes- 
chal of the Navy League), and it breathes throughout 
the motive spirit of our greatest lyrics. 

It is the execution that is defective, and it is to 
execution that Mr. Mayhem must direct himself if he 
would rise to the level of his own great conceptions. 

We will take the sonnet line by line, and make our 
meaning clear, and we do this earnestly for the sake 
of a young poet to whom the Anglo-Saxon race owes 
much, and whom it would be deplorable to see failing, 
as Kipling appears to be failing, and as Ganzer has 
failed. 

Line 1 is not very striking, but might pass as an 
introduction ; line 2 is sheer pleonasm — after using the 
word "fate," you cannot use "fortune," "accident," 
" chance," as though they were amplifications of your 
first thought. Moreover, the phrase "by fortune's 



30 THE AFTERMATH 

turn " has a familiar sound. It is rather an echo than 
a creation. 

In line 3, "craven fears of being great" is taken 
from Tennyson. The action is legitimate enough. 
Thus, in Wordsworth's " Excursion " are three lines 
taken bodily from " Paradise Lost," in Kipling's "Stow 
it" are whole phrases taken from the Police Gazette, 
and in Mr. Austin's verses you may frequently find 
portions of a Standard leader. Nevertheless, it is a 
license which a young poet should be chary of. All 
these others were men of an established reputation 
before they permitted themselves this liberty. 

In line 4, " dishevelled " is a false epithet for 
u lance " ; a lance has no hair ; the adjective can only 
properly be used of a woman, a wild beast, or domestic 
animal. 

In line 5, " incur the hate " is a thoroughly unpoetic 
phrase — we say so unreservedly. In line 6, we have 
one of those daring experiments in metre common to 
our younger poets ; therefore we hesitate to pronounce 
upon it, but (if we may presume to advise) we should 
give Mr. Mayhem the suggestion made by the Times 
to Temiyson — that he should stick to an exact metre 
until he felt sure of his style; and in line 8, "the 
backward move of your advance " seems a little 
strained. 

It is, however, in the sextet that the chief slips of 
the sonnet appear, and they are so characteristic of the 
author's later errors, that we cannot but note them ; 
thus, " purchased not with gold or Frankincense " is a 
grievous error. It is indeed a good habit to quote 
Biblical phrases (a habit which has been the making 
of half our poets), but not to confuse them : frankin- 
cense was never used as coin — even by the Hittites. 
" Incommensurate " is simply meaningless. How can 
blood be " incommensurate " ? We fear Mr. Mayhem 
has fallen into the error of polysyllabic effect, a modern 
pitfall. " Island blood " will, however, stir many a 
responsive thrill. 

The close of the sonnet is a terrible falling off. 
When you say a thing is purchased, " not with this 
but— — " the reader naturally expects an alternative, 



REVIEWING 31 

instead of which Mr. Mayhem goes right off to another 
subject! Also (though the allusion to Nelson and 
Drake is magnificent) the mention of an iron hand 
and an eye by themselves on a poop seems to us a 
very violent metaphor. 

The last line is bad. 

We do not write in this vein to gain any reputation 
for preciosity, and still less to offend. Mr. Mayhem 
has many qualities. He has a rare handling of penul- 
timates, much potentiality, large framing; he has a 
very definite chiaroscuro, and the tones are full and 
objective ; so are the values. We would not restrain 
a production in which (as a partner in a publishing 
firm) the present writer is directly interested. But 
we wish to recall Mr. Mayhem to his earlier and 
simpler style — to the "Cassowary," and the superb 
interrupted seventh of " The Altar Ghoul." 

England cannot afford to lose that talent. 



ON POLITICAL APPEALS. 



POLITICAL APPEALS. 

It was one of Dr. Caliban's chief characteristics — 
and perhaps the main source of his power over 
others — that he could crystallize, or — to use the 
modern term— " wankle," the thought of his genera- 
tion into sharp unexpected phrases. Among others, 
this was constantly upon his lips : — 

11 We live in stirring times,'* 

If I may presume to add a word to the pronounce- 
ments of my revered master, I would re-write the 
sentence thus : — 

" We live in stirring — and changeful — times." 

It is not only an element of adventure, it is also an 
element of rapid and unexpected development which 
marks our period, and which incidentally lends so 
considerable an influence to genius. 

In the older and more settled order, political forces 
were so well known that no description or analysis 
of them was necessary : to this day members of our 
more ancient political families do not read the news- 
papers. Soon, perhaps, the national life will have 
entered a new groove, and once more literary gentle- 
men will but indirectly control the life of the nation. 

For the moment, however, their effect is direct and 
immediate. A vivid prophecy, a strong attack upon 



36 THE AFTERMATH 

this statesman or that foreign Government may deter- 
mine public opinion for a space of over ten days, and 
matter of this sort is remunerated at the rate of from 
155. to 185. 6d. per thousand words. When we con- 
trast this with the 95. paid for the translation of 
foreign classics, the 5s. of occasional verse, or even 
the 105. of police-court reporting, it is sufficiently 
evident that this kind of composition is the Premier 
Prose of our time. 

There must, indeed, be in London and Manchester, 
alive at the present moment, at least fifty men who 
can command the prices I have mentioned, and who, 
with reasonable industry, can earn as much as /500 
a year by their decisions upon political matters. But 
I should be giving the student very indifferent counsel 
were I to recommend him for the delivery of his 
judgment to the beaten track of Leading Articles or to 
that of specially written and signed communications : 
the sums paid for such writing never rise beyond a 
modest level ; the position itself is precarious. In 
London alone, and within a radius of 87 yards from 
the " Green Dragon," no less than 53 Authors lost 
their livelihood upon the more respectable papers from 
an inability to prophecy with any kind of accuracy 
upon the late war, and this at a time when the 
majority of regular politicians were able to retain 
their seats in Parliament and many ministers their 
rank in the Cabinet. 

By far the most durable, the most exalted, and the 
most effective kind of appeal, is that which is made 
in a poetic form, especially if that form be vague and 



POLITICAL APPEALS 37 

symbolic in its character. Nothing is risked and 
everything is gained by this method, upon which have 
been founded so many reputations and so many 
considerable fortunes. The student cannot be too 
strongly urged to abandon the regular and daily task 
of set columns— signed or unsigned — for the occa- 
sional Flash of Verse if he desire to provoke great 
wars and to increase his income. It may not always 
succeed, but the proportion of failures is very small, 
and at the worst it is but a moment's energy wasted. 

" We are sick " says one of the most famous among 
those who have adopted this method, " We are sick" — 
he is speaking not only of himself but of others — 
11 We are sick for a stave of the song that our fathers 
sang." Turn, therefore, to the dead — who are no 
longer alive, and with whom no quarrel is to be 
feared. Make them reappear and lend weight to 
your contention. Their fame is achieved, and may 
very possibly support your own. This kind of writing 
introduces all the elements that most profoundly affect 
the public : it is mysterious, it is vague, it is authori- 
tative ; it is also eminently literary, and I can recall 
no first-class political appeal of the last fifteen years 
which has not been cast more or less upon these lines. 

The subjects you may choose from are numerous 
and are daily increasing, but for the amateur the best, 
without any question, is that of Imperialism. It is 
a common ground upon which all meet, and upon 
which every race resident in the wealthier part of 
London is agreed. Bring forward the great ghosts of 
the past, let them swell what is now an all but 



38 THE AFTERMATH 

universal chorus. Avoid the more complicated 
metres, hendecasyllables, and the rest ; choose those 
which neither scan nor rhyme ; or, if their subtlety 
baffles you, fall back upon blank verse, and you should, 
with the most moderate talent, lay the foundation of 
a permanent success. 

I will append, as is my custom, a model upon 
which the student may shape his first efforts, though I 
would not have him copy too faithfully, lest certain 
idiosyncrasies of manner should betray the plagiarism. 

THE IMPERIALIST FEAST. 

[A Hall at the Grand Oriental. At a long table are 
seated innumerable Shades. The walls are decorated with 
flags of all nations, and a band of musicians in sham 
uniform are playing very loudly on a dais.'] 
Catullus rises and makes a short speech, pointing 
out the advantages of Strong Men, and making 
several delicate allusions to Caesar, who is too much 
of a gentleman to applaud. He then gives them the 
toast of " Imperialism," to which there is a hearty 
response. Lucan replies in a few well-chosen words, 
and they fall to conversation. 

Petronius — I would be crowned with paper flowers 
to-night 

And scented with the rare opopanax, 

Whose savour leads the Orient in, suggesting 

The seas beyond Modore. 
Talleyrand— Shove up, Petronius, 

And let me sit as near as possible 



POLITICAL APPEALS 39 

To Mr. Bingoe's Grand Imperial Band 
With Thirty-seven Brazen Instruments 
And Kettle-Drums complete : I hear the players 
Discourse the music called " What Ho 1 She 
Bumps ! " 
Lord Chesterfield— What Ho! She Bumps! Like- 
wise! C'est ca! There's 'Air 1 
Lord Glenaltamont of Ephesus (severely) — Lord 

Chesterfield ! Be worthy of your name. 
Lord Chesterfield (angrily)— Lord Squab, be worthy 

of your son-in-law's. 
Henry V. — My Lords! my Lords! What do you 
with your swords ? 
I mean, what mean you by this strange demeanour 
Which (had you swords and knew you how to 

use them) 
Might .... I forget what I was going to 
say. .... 

Oh ! Yes Is this the time for peers to quarrel, 

When all the air is thick with Agincourt 
And every other night is Crispin's day ? 
The very supers bellow up and down, 
Armed of rude cardboard and wide blades of tin 
For England and St. George ! 
Richard Yea and Nay— You talk too much. 

Think more. Revise. Avoid the commonplace ; 
And when you lack a startling word, invent it. 
[Their quarrel is stopped by Thomas Jefferson rising 
to propose the toast of " The Anglo-Saxon Race"] 
Jefferson— If I were asked what was the noblest 
message 



4<D THE AFTERMATH 

Delivered to the twentieth century, 
I should reply — 

(Etc., etc. While he maunders on 
Antony, Cleopatra, and Cesar begin talking 
rather loud) 
Cleopatra — Waiter ! I want a little creme de menthe. 

(The waiter pays no attention.) 
Antony — Waiter ! A glass of curacao and brandy. 

( Waiter still looks at Jefferson.) 
Caesar — That is the worst of these contracted 
dinners. 
They give you quite a feed for 35. 6d. 
And have a splendid Band. I like the Band, 

It stuns the soul But when you call 

the waiter 
He only sneers and looks the other way. 
Cleopatra (makes a moue). 

Cesar (archly) — Was that the face that launched a 
thousand ships 
And sacked .... 
Antony (angrily) — Oh ! Egypt ! Egypt ! Egypt ! 
Thomas Jefferson (ending, interrupts the quarrel). 

. . . • blessings 
Of order, cleanliness, and business methods. 
The base of Empire is a living wage. 
One King .... (applause) .... (applause) 
• , • . (applause) shall always wave 

.... (applause) 
«... (loud applause) .... (applause) 
The Reign of Law! 
(Thunders of applause) 



POLITICAL APPEALS 4 1 

Napoleon (rising to reply)— I am myself a strong 
Imperialist. 
A brochure, very recently compiled 
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read), 
Neglects the point, I think ; the Anglo-Saxon 
.... (&c. &c.) 
George III. (to Burke) — Who's that ? Eh, what ? 

Who's that ? Who ever 's that ? 
Burke — Dread sire ! It is the Corsican Vampire. 
George III. — Napoleon? What? I thought that 
he was leaner. 
I thought that he was leaner. What ? What ? 
What? 
Napoleon (sitting down) .... such dispositions ! 
Order ! Tete d'A rmee / 

(Slight applause) 
Herod (rises suddenly without being asked, crosses his 
arms, glares, and shouts very loudly). 
Ha ! Would you have Imperial hearing ? Hounds ! 
I am that Herod which is he that am 
The lonely Lebanonian {interruption) who des- 
paired 
In Deep Marsupial Dens .... (cries of li Sit 
down/") 

. • • . In dreadful hollows 
To— (" Sit- down ! ")— tear great trees with the 

teeth, and hurricanes — (" Sit down /") — 
That shook the hills of Moab ! 
Chorus of Dead Men — Oh ! Sit down. 
(He is swamped by the clamour, in the midst of which 
Lucullus murmurs to himself) 



42 THE AFTERMATH 

Lucullus (musing) — The banquet's done. There was 
a tribute drawn 
Of anchovies and olives and of soup 
In tins of conquered nations ; subject whiting : 
Saddle of mutton from the antipodes 
Close on the walls of ice ; Laponian pheasants ; 
Eggs of Canadian rebels, humbled now 
To such obeisance — scrambled eggs— and butter 
From Brittany enslaved, and the white bread 
Hardened for heroes in the test of time, 
Was California's offering. But the cheese, 

The cheese was ours Oh! but the 

glory faded 
Of feasting at repletion mocks our arms 
And threatens even Empire. 

(Great noise of Vulgarians, a mob of people, heralds, 
trumpets, flags. Enter Vitellius.) 

Vitellius — I have dined! 

But not with you. The master of the world 
Has dined alone and at his own expense. 
And oh ! — I am almost too full for words — 
But oh ! My lieges, I have used you well ! 
I have commanded fifteen hundred seats 
And standing room for something like a thousand 
To view my triumph over Nobody 
Upon the limelit stage. 

Herod — Oh ! rare Vitellius, 

Oh! Prominent great Imperial ears! Oh! Mouth 
To bellow largesse ! Oh ! And rolling Thunder, 
And trains of smoke. And oh ! . . 

Vitellius — Let in the vulgar 



POLITICAL APPEALS 43 

To see the master sight of their dull lives : 
Great Caesar putting on his overcoat. 
And then, my loved companions, we'll away 
To see the real Herod in the Play. 
(The Shades pass out in a crowd. In the street Theocritus 
is heard singing in a voice that gets fainter and fainter 

with distance ) 

" Put me somewhere ea-heast of Su-hez, 
Were the best is loi-hoike the worst — 
Were there hain' no " — (and so forth). 

Finis. 

It is not enough to compose such appeals as may 
quicken the nation to a perception of her peculiar 
mission ; it is necessary to paint for her guidance the 
abominations and weakness of foreign countries. The 
young writer may be trusted to know his duty in- 
stinctively in this matter, but should his moral per- 
ception be blunted, a sharper argument will soon 
remind him of what he owes to the Common Con- 
science of Christians. He that cannot write, and write 
with zeal, upon the Balkans, or upon Finland, or upon 
the Clerical trouble, or upon whatever lies before 
us to do for righteousness, is not worthy of a place 
in English letters : the public and his editor will very 
soon convince him of what he has lost by an unmanly 
reticence. 

His comrades, who are content to deal with such 
matters as they arise, will not be paid at a higher rate : 
but they will be paid more often. They will not infre- 
quently be paid from several sources ; they will have 



44 THE AFTERMATH 

many opportunities for judging those financial ques- 
tions which are invariably mixed up with the great 
battle against the Ultramontane, the Cossack and the 
Turk. In Cairo, Frankfort, Pretoria, Mayfair, Shang- 
hai, their latter days confirm Dr. Caliban's profound 
conclusion: "Whosoever works for Humanity works, 
whether he know it or not, for himself as well."* 

I earnestly beseech the reader of this text-book, 
especially if he be young, to allow no false shame to 
modify his zeal in judging the vileness of the Continent. 
We know whatever can be known ; all criticism or 
qualification is hypocrisy ; all silence is cowardice. 
There is work to be done. Let the writer take up his 
pen and write. 

I had some little hesitation what model to put before 
the student. This book does not profess to be more 
than an introduction to the elements of our science ; 
I therefore omitted what had first seemed to me of 
some value, the letters written on a special commis- 
sion to Pondicherry during the plague and famine in 
that unhappy and ill-governed remnant of a falling 
empire. The articles on the tortures in the Phillipines 
were never printed, and might mislead. I have pre- 
ferred to show Priestcraft and Liberty in their eternal 
struggle as they appeared to me in the character of 
Special Commissioner for Out and About during the 
troubles of 1901. It is clear, and I think unbiassed ; 
it opens indeed in that light fashion which is a con- 
cession to contemporary journalism : but the half- 

* This Phrase closes the XXXIVth of Dr. Caliban's " Subjects 
for Sinners." 



POLITICAL APPEALS 45 

frivolous exterior conceals a permanent missionary 
purpose. Its carefully collected array of facts give, 
I suggest, a vivid picture of one particular battlefield ; 
that whereon there rage to-day the opposed forces 
which will destroy or save the French people. The 
beginner could not have a better introduction to his 
struggle against the infamies of Clericalism. Let him 
ask himself (as Mr. Gardy, M.P., asked in a letter to 
Out and About) the indignant question, " Could such 
things happen here in England ? " 

THE SHRINE OF ST. LOUP. 
My excellent good Dreyfusards, anti-Dreyfusards, 
Baptists, Anabaptists, pre-Monstratentians, anti- 
quaries, sterling fellows, foreign correspondents, 
home-readers, historians, Nestorians, philosophers, 
Deductionists, Inductionists, Praetorians (I forgot 
those), Caesarists, Lazarists, Catholics, Protestants, 
Agnostics and militant atheists, as also all you 
Churchmen, Nonconformists, Particularists, very 
strong secularists, and even you, my well-beloved 
little brethren called The Peculiar People, give ear 
attentively and listen to what is to follow, and you 
shall learn more of a matter that has wofully dis- 
turbed you than ever you would get from the Daily 
Mail or from Mynheer van Damm, or even from 
Dr. Biggies' Walks and Talks in France, 

In an upper valley of the Dauphine* there is a 
village called Lagarde. From this village, at about 
half-past four o'clock of a pleasant June morning, 
there walked out with his herd one Jean Rigors, a 



46 THE AFTERMATH 

herdsman and half-wit. He had not proceeded very 
far towards the pastures above the village, and the 
sun was barely showing above the peak profanely 
called The Three Bishops, when he had the fortune 
to meet the Blessed St. Loup, or Lupus, formerly a 
hermit in that valley, who had died some fourteen 
hundred years ago, but whose name, astonishing as 
it may seem to the author of The Justification of 
Fame, is still remembered among the populace. The 
Blessed Lupus admonished the peasant, recalling the 
neglect into which public worship had fallen, reluc- 
tantly promised a sign whereby it might be re-created 
among the faithful, and pointed out a nasty stream 
of muddy water, one out of fifty that trickled from 
the moss of the Alps. He then struck M. Rigors a 
slight, or, as some accounts have it, a heavy, blow 
with his staff, and disappeared in glory. 

Jean Rigors, who could not read or write, being a 
man over thirty, and having therefore forgotten the 
excellent free lessons provided by the Republic in 
primary schools, was not a little astonished at the 
apparition. Having a care to tether a certain calf 
whom he knew to be light-headed, he left the rest of 
the herd to its own unerring instincts, and ran back 
to the village to inform the parish priest of the very 
remarkable occurrence of which he had been the 
witness or victim. He found upon his return that 
the morning Mass, from which he had been absent 
off and on for some seven years, was already at the 
Gospel, and attended to it with quite singular devo- 
tion, until in the space of some seventeen minutes he 



POLITICAL APPEALS 47 

was able to meet the priest in the sacristy and inform 
him of what had happened. 

The priest, who had heard of such miraculous 
appearances in other villages, but (being a humble 
man, unfitted for worldly success and idiotic in busi- 
ness matters) had never dared to hope that one would 
be vouchsafed to his own cure, proceeded at once to 
the source of the muddy streamlet, and (unhistorical 
as the detail may seem to the author of Our Old 
Europe, Whence and Whither ?) neglected to reward the 
hind, who, indeed, did not expect pecuniary remunera- 
tion, for these two excellent reasons : — First, that he 
knew the priest to be by far the poorest man in the 
parish ; secondly, that he thought a revelation from 
the other world incommensurate with money pay- 
ments even to the extent of a five-franc piece. The 
next Sunday (that is, three days afterwards) the priest, 
who had previously informed his brethren throughout 
the Canton, preached a sermon upon the decay of 
religion and the growing agnosticism of the modern 
world — a theme which, as they had heard it publicly 
since the Christian religion had been established by 
Constantine in those parts and privately for one hun- 
dred and twenty-five years before, his congregation re- 
ceived with some legitimate languor. When, however, 
he came to what was the very gist of his remarks, 
the benighted foreigners pricked up their ears (a 
physical atavism impossible to our own more en- 
lightened community), and Le Sieur Rigors, who could 
still remember the greater part of the services of 
the Church, was filled with a mixture of nervous- 



48 THE AFTERMATH 

ness and pride, while the good priest informed his 
hearers, in language that would have been eloquent 
had he not been trained in the little seminary, that 
the great St. Lupus himself had appeared to a devout 
member of his parish and had pointed out to him a 
miraculous spring, for the proper enshrinement of 
which he requested — nay, he demanded — the con- 
tributions of the faithful. 

At that one sitting the excellent hierarch received 
no less a sum than 1053 francs and 67 centimes ; 
the odd two-centimes (a coin that has disappeared 
from the greater part of France) being contributed 
by a road-mender, who was well paid by the State, 
but who was in the custom of receiving charity from 
tourists ; the said tourists being under the erroneous 
impression that he was a beggar. He also, by the 
way, would entertain the more Anglo-Saxon of these 
with the folk-lore of the district, in which his fertile 
imagination was never at fault. 

It will seem astonishing to the author of Village 
Communities in Western Europe to hear of so large a 
sum as jQ^o being subscribed by the congregation of 
this remote village, and it would seem still more 
astonishing to him could he see the very large chapel 
erected over the spring of St. Loup. I do not say 
that he would understand the phenomenon, but I do 
say that he would become a more perturbed and there- 
fore a wiser man did he know the following four 
facts : — (1) That the freehold value of the village and 
its communal land, amounting to the sum of a poor 
£20,000, was not in the possession of a landlord, but 



POLITICAL APPEALS 49 

in that of these wretched peasants. (2) That the 
one rich man of the neighbourhood, a retired glove- 
maker, being also a fanatic, presented his subscrip- 
tions in such a manner that they were never heard of. 
He had, moreover, an abhorrence for the regulation of 
charity. (3) That the master mason in the neigh- 
bouring town had in his youth been guilty of several 
mortal sins, and was so weak as to imagine that a 
special tender would in such a case make a kind of 
reparation ; and (4) that the labourers employed were 
too ignorant to cheat and too illiterate to combine. 

The new shrine waxed and prospered exceedingly, 
and on the Thursday following its dedication an 
epileptic, having made use of the water, was restored 
to a normal, and even commonplace, state of mind. 
On the Friday a girl, who said that she had been 
haunted by devils (though until then no one had 
heard of the matter), declared, upon drinking a cup 
from the spring of St. Loup, that she was now 
haunted by angels — a very much pleasanter condition 
of affairs. The Sunday following, the village usurer, 
who called himself Bertollin, but who was known to 
be a wicked foreigner from beyond the Alps, of the 
true name of Bertolino, ran into the inn like one 
demented, and threw down the total of his ill-gotten 
gains for the benefit of the shrine. They amounted, 
indeed, to but a hundred francs, but then his clientele 
were close and skin-flint, as peasant proprietors and 
free men generally are the world over ; and it was 
well known that the cobbler, who had himself bor- 
rowed a small sum for a month, and quadrupled it in 

E 



50 THE AFTERMATH 

setting up lodgings for artists, had been unable to 
recover from the usurer the mending of his boots. 

By this time the Bishop had got wind of the new 
shrine, and wrote to the Cure of Lagarde a very 
strong letter, in which, after reciting the terms of the 
Concordat, Clause 714 of the Constitution and the 
decree of May 29th, 1854, he pointed out that by all 
these and other fundamental or organic laws of the 
Republic, he was master in his own diocese. He 
rebuked the cure for the superstitious practice which 
had crept into his cure, ordered the chapel to be used 
for none but ordinary purposes, and issued a pastoral 
letter upon the evils of local superstitions. This 
pastoral letter was read with unction and holy mirth 
in the neighbouring monastery of Bernion (founded 
in defiance of the law by the widow of a President of 
the Republic), but with sorrow and without comment 
in the little church of Lagarde. 

The Minister of the Interior and the Minister of 
Public Worship, each in his separate way, proceeded 
to stamp out this survival of the barbaric period of 
Europe. The first by telling the Prefect to tell the 
sub- Prefect to tell the Mayor that any attempt to 
levy taxes in favour of the shrine would be adminis- 
tratively punished: the second by writing a sharp 
official note to the Bishop for not having acted on the 
very day that St. Loup appeared to the benighted 
herdsman. The sub -Prefect came from the horrible 
town of La Rochegayere and lunched with the Mayor, 
who was the donor of the new stained-glass window 
in the church, and they talked about the advantages 



POLITICAL APPEALS 5 I 

of forcing the Government to construct a road through 
the valley to accommodate the now numerous pil- 
grims ; a subject which the sub- Prefect, who was 
about to be promoted, approached with official non- 
chalance, but the Mayor (who owned the principal 
inn) with pertinacity and fervour. They then went 
out, the Mayor in his tricolour scarf to lock up the 
gate in front of the holy well, the sub- Prefect to 
escort his young wife to the presbytery, where she 
left a gift of 500 francs : the sub- Prefect thought it 
improper for a lady to walk alone. 

Upon the closure of the shrine a local paper (joint 
property of the Bishop and a railway contractor) 
attacked the atheism of the Government. A local 
duchess, who was ignorant of the very terminology of 
religion, sent a donation of five thousand francs to the 
cure ; with this the excellent man built a fine approach 
to the new chapel, " which," as he sorrowfully and 
justly observed, " the faithful may approach, though 
an atheistic Government forbids the use of the shrine." 
That same week, by an astonishing accident, the 
Ministry was overturned ; the Minister of the Interior 
was compelled to retire into private life, and lived 
dependent upon his uncle (a Canon of Rheims). The 
Minister of Public Worship (who had become in- 
creasingly unpopular through the growth of anti- 
Semitic feeling) took up his father's money-lending 
business at Antwerp. 

Next week the lock and seals were discovered to 
have been in some inexplicable way removed from 
the gate of the well and (by Article 893 of the Ad- 

e— 2 



52 THE AFTERMATH 

ministrative Code) before they could be replaced an 
action was necessary at the assize-town of Grenoble. 
This action (by the Order of 1875 on Law Terms) 
could not take place for six months ; and in that 
interval an astonishing number of things happened 
at Lagarde. 

An old Sapper General, who had devised the special 
obturator for light quick-firing guns, and who was 
attached to the most backward superstitions, came in 
full uniform to the Chapel and gave the shrine 10,000 
francs : a mysteriously large endowment, as this sum 
was nearly half his income, and he had suffered im- 
prisonment in youth for his Republican opinions. He 
said it was for the good of his soul, but the editor of 
the Horrenr knew better, and denounced him. He 
was promptly retired upon a pension about a third 
greater than that to which he was legally entitled, 
and received by special secret messenger from the 
Minister of War an earnest request to furnish a 
memorandum on the fortifications of the Isere and 
to consider himself inspector, upon mobilisation, of 
that important line of defence. 

Two monks, who had walked all the way from 
Spain, settled in a house near the well. A pilgrim, 
who had also evidently come from a prodigious dis- 
tance on foot, but gave false information as to his 
movements, was arrested by the police and subse- 
quently released. The arrest was telegraphed to the 
Times and much commented upon, but the suicide of 
a prominent London solicitor and other important 
news prevented any mention of his release. 



POLITICAL APPEALS 53 

A writer of great eminence, who had been a leading 
sceptic all his life, stayed at Lagarde for a month and 
became a raving devotee. His publishers (MM. Her- 
mann Khan) punished him by refusing to receive his 
book upon the subject ; but by some occult influence, 
probably that of the Jesuits, he was paid several 
hundreds for it by the firm of Zadoc et Cie; ten 
years afterwards he died of a congested liver, a catas- 
trophe which some ascribed to a Jewish plot, and 
others treated as a proof that his intellect had long 
been failing. 

A common peasant fellow, that had been paralysed 
for ten years, bathed in the water and walked away 
in a sprightly fashion afterwards. This was very 
likely due to his ignorance, for a doctor who narrowly 
watched the whole business has proved that he did 
not know the simplest rudiments of arithmetic or 
history, and how should such a fellow understand so 
difficult a disease as paralysis of the Taric nerve — 
especially if it were (as the doctor thought quite 
evident) complicated by a stricture of the Upper 
Dalmoid ? 

Two deaf women were, as is very commonly the 
case with enthusiasts of this kind, restored to their 
hearing; for how long we do not know, as their 
subsequent history was not traced for more than five 
years. 

A dumb boy talked, but in a very broken fashion, 
and as he had a brother a priest and another brother 
in the army, trickery was suspected. 

An English merchant, who had some trouble with 



54 THE AFTERMATH 

his eyes, bathed in the water at the instance of a 
sister who desired to convert him. He could soon 
see so well that he was able to write to the Freethinker 
an account of his healing, called " The Medicinal 
Springs of Lagarde," but, as he has subsequently 
gone totally blind, the momentary repute against 
ophthalmia which the water might have obtained was 
nipped in the bud. 

What was most extraordinary of all, a very respect- 
able director of a railway came to the village quietly, 
under an assumed name, and, after drinking the 
water, made a public confession of the most incredible 
kind and has since become a monk. His son, to 
whom he made over his whole fortune, had previously 
instituted a demand at law to be made guardian of 
his estates ; but, on hearing of his father's determi- 
nation to embrace religion, he was too tolerant to 
pursue the matter further. 

To cut a long story short, as Homer said when he 
abruptly closed the Odyssey, some 740 cases of mira- 
culous cures occurred between the mysterious opening 
of the gates and the date for the trial at Grenoble. 
In that period a second and much larger series of 
buildings had begun to arise ; the total property in- 
volved in the case amounted to 750,000 francs, and 
(by clause 61 of the Regulation on Civil Tribunals) 
the local court of assize was no longer competent. 
Before, however, the case could be removed to Paris, 
the assent of the Grenoble bench had to be formally 
obtained, and this, by the singularly Republican rule 
of "Non-want" (instituted by Louis XI.), took just 



POLITICAL APPEALS 55 

two years. By that time the new buildings were 
finished, eight priests were attached to the Church, a 
monastery of seventy-two monks, five hotels, a golf 
links, and a club were in existence. The total taxes 
paid by Lagarde to the Treasury amounted to half- 
a-million francs a year. 

The Government had become willing (under the 
M Compromise of '49," which concerns Departments 
v. the State in the matter of internal communications) 
to build a fine, great road up to Lagarde. There was 
also a railway, a Custom House, and a project of 
sub-prefecture. Moreover, in some underhand way 
or other, several hundred people a month were cured 
of various ailments, from the purely subjective (such 
as buzzing in the ears) to those verging upon the 
truly objective (such as fracture of the knee-pan or 
the loss of an eye). 

The Government is that of a practical and common- 
sense people. It will guide or protect, but it cannot 
pretend to coerce. Lagarde therefore flourishes, the 
Bishop is venerated, the monastery grumbles in 
silence, and there is some talk of an Hungarian 
journalist, born in Constantinople, whose father did 
time for cheating in the Russian Army, writing one 
of his fascinating anti-religious romances in nine 
hundred pages upon the subject. You will learn far 
more from such a book than you can possibly learn 
from the narrow limits of the above. 



THE SHORT STORY. 



THE SHORT STORY. 

The short story is the simplest of all forms of literary 
composition. It is at the same time by far the most 
lucrative. It has become (to use one of Dr. Caliban's 
most striking phrases) "part of the atmosphere of our 
lives." In a modified form, it permeates our private 
correspondence, our late Baron Reuter's telegraphic 
messages, the replies of our cabinet ministers, the 
rulings of our judges ; and it has become inseparable 
from affirmations upon oath before Magistrates, 
Registrars, Coroners, Courts of Common Jurisdiction, 
Official Receivers, and all others qualified under 17 
Vic. 21, Caps. 2 and 14; sub-section III. 

To return to the short story. Its very reason 
for being (raison d'etre) is simplicity. It suits our 
strenuous, active race ; nor would I waste the 
student's time by recalling the fact that, in the 
stagnant civilization of China, a novel or play 
deals with the whole of the hero's life, in its 
minutest details, through seventy years. The con- 
trast conveys an awful lesson ! 

Let us confine ourselves, however, to the purpose 
of these lines, and consider the short story ; for it is 
the business of every true man to do what lies straight 
before him as honestly and directly as he can. 



60 THE AFTERMATH 

The Short Story, on account of its simplicity, 
coupled with the high rates of pay attached to it, 
attracts at the outset the great mass of writers. 
Several are successful, and in their eager rapture (I 
have but to mention John and Mary Hitherspoon) 
produce such numerous examples of this form of art, 
that the student may ask what more I have 
to teach him ? In presenting a model for his 
guidance, and reproducing the great skeleton lines 
upon which the Short Story is built up, I would 
remind my reader that it is my function to instruct 
and his to learn ; and I would warn him that even 
in so elementary a branch of letters as is this, " pride 
will have a fall." 

It is not necessary to dwell further upon this 
unpleasant aspect of my duty. 

Let us first consider where the writer of the Short 
Story stands before the Law. What is her Legal 
Position as to (a) the length, (b) the plot of a short 
story which she may have contracted to deliver on a 
certain date to a particular publisher, editor, agent, 
or creditor ? The following two decisions apply : — 

Mabworthy Mabworthy v. Crawley. — Mrs. Mabworthy 
Y.Crawley, brought an action against Crawley & Co. 
to recover payment due for a short story 
ordered of her by defendant. Defendant 
pleaded lack of specific performance, as 
story dealt with gradual change of spiritual 
outlook, during forty years, of maiden lady 
inhabiting Ealing. It was held by Mr. Jus- 



THE SHORT STORY 6l 

tice Pake that the subject so treated was 
not of "ordinary length." Judgment for the 
defendant. Mrs. Mabworthy, prompted by 
her sex, fortune, and solicitor to appeal, 
the matter was brought before the Court 
of Appeal, which decided that the word 
"ordinary" was equivalent to the word 
"reasonable." Judgment for the defendant, 
with costs. Mrs. Mabworthy, at the insti- 
gation of the Devil, sold a reversion and 
carried the matter to the House of Lords, 
where it was laid down that " a Short Story 
should be of such length as would be 
found tolerable by any man of ordinary 
firmness and courage." Judgment for the 
defendant. 

The next case is the case of— 

Gibson y. Gibson v. Acle. — In this case, Mr. Phillip 
Acle. Gibson, the well-known publisher, brought 
an action for the recovery of a sum of 
£l. 105., advanced to Miss Acle, of " The 
Wolfcote," Croydon, in consideration of 
her contracting to supply a short story, 
with regard to the manuscript of which he 
maintained, upon receiving it, that (i) it 
was not a story, and (2) it was not techni- 
cally " short," as it filled but eighteen lines 
in the very large type known as grand 
pica. Three very important points were 
decided in this case ; for the Judge (Mr. 



62 THE AFTERMATH 

Justice Veale, brother of Lord Burpham) 
maintained, with sturdy common sense, 
that if a publisher bought a manuscript, 
no matter what, so long as it did not offend 
common morals or the public security of 
the realm, he was bound to " print, com- 
fort, cherish, defend, enforce, push, main- 
tain, advertize, circulate, and make public 
the same"; and he was supported in the 
Court of Crown Cases Reserved in his 
decision that : 

First : the word " short " was plainly the 
more applicable the less lengthy were the 
matter delivered : and 

Secondly: the word " story" would hold 
as a definition for any concoction of words 
whatsoever, of which it could be proved 
that it was built up of separate sentences, 
such sentences each to consist of at least 
one predicate and one verb, real or ima- 
ginary. 

Both these decisions are quite recent, and may be 
regarded as the present state of the law on the matter. 

Once the legal position of the author is grasped, it 
is necessary to acquire the five simple rules which 
govern the Short Story. 

i st. It should, as a practical matter apart from 
the law, contain some incident. 

2nd. That incident should take place on the sea, 
or in brackish, or at least tidal, waters, 



THE SHORT STORY 63 

3rd. The hero should be English-speaking, white 
or black. 

4th. His adventures should be horrible ; but no 
kind of moral should be drawn from them, unless it be 
desired to exalt the patriotism of the reader. 

5th. Every short story should be divided by a 
''Caesura": that is, it should break off sharp in the 
middle, and you have then the choice of three distinct 
courses : 

(a.) To stop altogether — as is often done by people 
who die, and whose remains are published. 

(b). To go on with a totally different subject. 
This method is not to be commended to the beginner. 
It is common to rich or popular writers; and even 
they have commonly the decency to put in asterisks. 

(c). To go on with your story where it left off, as 
I have done in the model which followSc 

That model was constructed especially with the view 
to guide the beginner. Its hero is a fellow subject, 
white — indeed, an Englishman. The scene is laid in 
water, not perhaps salt, but at least brackish. The 
adventure preys upon the mind. The moral is doubt- 
ful : the Caesura marked and obvious. Moreover, it 
begins in the middle, which (as I omitted to state 
above) is the very hall-mark of the Vivid Manner. 

THE ACCIDENT TO MR. THORPE. 
When Mr. Thorpe, drysalter, of St. Mary Axe, E.C., 
fell into the water, it was the opinion of those who 
knew him best that he would be drowned. I say 
" those who knew him best " because, in the crowd 



64 THE AFTERMATH 

that immediately gathered upon the embankment, 
there were present not a few of his friends. They 
had been walking home together on this fine evening 
along the river side, and now that Mr. Thorpe was in 
such peril, not one could be got to do more than lean 
upon the parapet shouting for the police, though they 
should have known how useless was that body of men 
in any other than its native element. Alas ! how 
frail a thing is human friendship, and how terribly 
does misfortune bring it to the test. 

How had Mr. Thorpe fallen into the water? I am 
not surprised at your asking that question. It argues 
a very observant, critical, and accurate mind ; a love 
of truth ; a habit of weighing evidence ; and altogether 
a robust, sturdy, practical, Anglo-Saxon kind of an 
attitude, that does you credit. You will not take 
things on hearsay, and there is no monkish credulity 
about you. I congratulate you. You say (and rightly) 
that Honest Merchants do not fall into the Thames 
for nothing, the thing is unusual; you want (very 
properly) to know how it happened, or, as you call it, 
" occurred." I cannot tell you. I was not there at 
the time. All I know is, that he did fall in, and that, 
as matter of plain fact (and you are there to judge 
fact, remember, not law), Mr. Thorpe was at 6.15 in 
the evening of June 7th, 1892, floundering about in 
the water a little above Cleopatra's Needle; and 
there are a cloud of witnesses. 

It now behoves me to detail with great accuracy 
the circumstances surrounding his immersion, the 
degree of danger that he ran, and how he was saved. 



the'short story 65 

In the first place, Mr. Thorpe fell in at the last of the 
ebb, so that there was no tide to sweep him out to 
sea ; in the second place, the depth of water at that 
spot was exactly five feet two inches, so that he 
could — had he but known it — have walked ashore 
(for he was, of course, over six feet in height) ; in the 
third place, the river has here a good gravelly bed, as 
you ought to know, for the clay doesn't begin till you 
get beyond Battersea Bridge — and, by the way, this 
gravel accounts for the otherwise inexplicable pheno- 
menon of the little boys that will dive for pennies at 
low tide opposite the shot tower ; in the fourth place, 
the water, as one might have imagined at that season of 
the year, was warm and comfortable ; in the fifth place, 
there lay but a few yards from him a Police Pier, 
crowded with lines, lifebuoys, boats, cork-jackets, 
and what not, and decorated, as to its Main Room, 
with a large placard entitled " First help to the 
drowning," the same being illustrated with cuts, 
showing a man of commonplace features fallen into 
the hands of his religious opponents and undergoing 
the torture. Therefore it is easy to see that he could 
have either saved himself or have been saved by 
others without difficulty. Indeed, for Mr. Thorpe to 
have drowned, it would have been necessary for him 
to have exercised the most determined self-control, 
and to have thought out the most elaborate of suicidal 
plans ; and, as a fact, he was within forty-three seconds 
of his falling in pulled out again by a boat-hook, which 
was passed through the back of his frock coat: and 
that is a lesson in favour of keeping one's coal but- 



66 



THE AFTERMATH 



toned up like a gentleman, and not letting it flap 
open like an artist or an anarchist, or a fellow that 
writes for the papers. But I digress. The point is, 
that Mr. Thorpe was immediately saved, and there 
(you might think) was an end of the matter. Indeed, 
the thing seems to come to a conclusion of its own, 
and to be a kind of epic, for it has a beginning where 
Mr. Thorpe falls into the water (and, note you, the 
beginning of all epics is, or should be, out of the 
text) ; it has a middle or " action," where Mr. Thorpe 
is floundering about like a sea monster, and an end, 
where he is pulled out again. They are of larger 
scope than this little story, and written in a pompous 
manner, yet the Iliad, the JEneid, Abbo's Siege of 
Paris, the Chanson de Roland, Orlando Furioso, Thalaba 
the Destroyer, and Mr. Davidson's shorter lyrics have 
no better claim to be epics in their essentials than has 
this relation of The Accident to Mr. Thorpe. So, then 
(you say), that is the end ; thank you for the story ; 
we are much obliged. If ever you have another 
simple little story to tell, pray publish it at large, 
and do not keep if for the exquisite delight of your 
private circle. We thank you again a thousand 
times. Good morrow. 

Softly, softly. I beg that there may be no undue 
haste or sharp conclusions ; there is something more 
to come. Sit you down and listen patiently. Was 
there ever an epic that was not continued ? Did not 
the Rhapsodists of Cos piece together the Odyssey 
after their successful Iliad ? Did not Dionysius Para- 
celsus write a tail to the JEneid ? Was not the Chanson 



THE SHORT STORY 6j 

de Roland followed by the Four Sons of Aymon ? Could 
Southey have been content with Thalaba had he not 
proceeded to write the adventures in America of 
William ap Williams, or some other Welshman 
whose name I forget ? Eh ? Well, in precisely the 
same manner, I propose to add a second and com- 
pleting narrative to this of Mr. Thorpe's accident ; so 
let us have no grumbling. 

And to understand what kind of thing followed his 
fall into the water, I must explain to you that nothing 
had ever happened to Mr. Thorpe before ; he had 
never sailed a boat, never ridden a horse, never had a 
fight, never written a book, never climbed a moun- 
tain — indeed, I might have set out in a long litany, 
covering several pages, the startling, adventurous, 
and dare-devil things that Mr. Thorpe had never 
done ; and were I to space out my work so, I should 
be well in the fashion, for does not the immortal 
Kipling (who is paid by the line) repeat his own lines 
half-a-dozen times over, and use in profusion the lines 
of well-known ballads ? He does ; and so have I 
therefore the right to space and stretch my work in 
whatever fashion will spin out the space most fully ; 
and if I do not do so, it is because I am as eager as you 
can possibly be to get to the end of this chronicle. 

Well then, nothing had ever happened to Mr. 
Thorpe before, and what was the result ? Why that 
this aqueous adventure of his began to grow and 
possess him as you and I are possessed by our more 
important feats, by our different distant journeys, our 
bold speculations, our meeting with grand acquain* 

F — 2 



68 THE AFTERMATH 

tances, our outwitting of the law ; and I am sorry to 
say that Mr. Thorpe in a very short time began to lie 
prodigiously. The symptoms of this perversion first 
appeared a few days after the accident, at a lunch 
which he attended (with the other directors of the 
Marine Glue Company) in the City. The company 
was in process of negotiating a very difficult piece 
of business, that required all the attention of the 
directors, and, as is usual under such circumstances, 
they fell to telling amusing tales to one another. 
One of them had just finished his story of how a 
nephew of his narrowly escaped lynching at Lead- 
ville, Colorado, when Mr. Thorpe, who had been 
making ponderous jokes all the morning, was suddenly 
observed to grow thoughtful, and (after first ascer- 
taining with some care that there was no one present 
who had seen him fall in) he astonished the company 
by saying : " I cannot hear of such escapes from 
death without awe. It was but the other day that I 
was saved as by a miracle from drowning." Then 
he added, after a little pause, " My whole life seemed 
to pass before me in a moment." 

Now this was not true. Mr. Thorpe's mind at the 
moment he referred to had been wholly engrossed 
by the peculiar sensation that follows the drinking of 
a gallon of water suddenly when one is not in the least 
thirsty; but he had already told the tale so often, 
that he was fully persuaded of it, and, by this time, 
believed that his excellent and un< ventful life had 
been presented to him as il is to th< drowning people 
in books. 



THE SHORT STORY 69 

His fall was rapid. He grew in some vague way 
to associate his adventure with the perils of the sea. 
Whenever he crossed the Channel he would draw 
some fellow passenger into a conversation, and, having 
cunningly led it on to the subject of shipwreck, would 
describe the awful agony of battling with the waves, 
and the outburst of relief on being saved. At first he 
did not actually say that he had himself struggled in 
the vast and shoreless seas of the world, but bit by bit 
the last shreds of accuracy left him, and he took to 
painting with minute detail in his conversations the 
various scenes of his danger and salvation. Some- 
times it was in the " steep water off the Banks;" 
sometimes in " the glassy steaming seas and on the 
feverish coast of the Bight;" sometimes it was "a 
point or two norr'ard of the Owers light " — but it 
was always terrible, graphic, and a lie. 

This habit, as it became his' unique preoccupation, 
cost him not a little. He lost his old friends who had 
seen his slight adventure, and he wasted much time 
in spinning these yarns, and much money in buying 
books of derring-do and wild 'scapes at^sea. He loved 
those who believed his stories to be true, and shocked 
the rare minds that seemed to catch in them a sus- 
picion of exaggeration. He could not long frequent 
the same society, and he strained his mind a little out 
of shape by the perpetual necessity of creative effort. 
None the less, I think that, on the whole, he gained. 
It made him an artist : he saw great visions of 
heaving waters at night ; he really had, in fancy, 
faced death in a terrible form, and this gave him a 



70 THE AFTERMATH 

singular courage in his last moments. He said to 
the doctor, with a slight calm smile, " Tell me the 
worst ; I have been through things far more terri- 
fying than this ; " and when he was offered consola- 
tion by his weeping friends, he told them that " no 
petty phrases of ritual devotion were needed to soothe 
a man who had been face to face with Nature in her 
wildest moods." So he died, comforted by his illu- 
sion, and for some days after the funeral his sister 
would hold him up to his only and favourite nephew 
as an example of a high and strenuous life lived with 
courage, and ended in heroic quiet. Then they all 
went to hear the will read. 

But the will was the greatest surprise of all. For 
it opened with these words : — 

" Having some experience of the perils they suffer 
that go down to the sea in ships, and of the blessed- 
ness of unexpected relief and rescue, I, John Curtail 
Thorpe, humbly and gratefully reminiscent of my 
own wonderful and miraculous snatching from the 
jaws of death . . ." 

And it went on to leave the whole property (inclu- 
ding the little place in Surrey), in all (after Sir 
William Vernon Harcourt's death duties had been 
paid) some ,£69,337. 6s. 3d. to the Lifeboat Fund, 
which badly needed it. Nor was there any modifying 
codicil but one, whereby the sum of £1000, free of 
duty, was left to Sylvester Sarassin, a poetic and 
long-haired young man, who had for years attended 
to his tales with reverent attention, and who had, 
indeed, drawn up, or " Englished " (as he called it), 
the remarkable will of the testator. 



THE SHORT STORY J I 

Many other things that followed this, the law-suit, 
the quarrel of the nephew with Sarassin, and so forth, 

I would relate had I the space or you the patience. 
But it grows late; the oil in the bulb is exhausted. 
The stars, which (in the beautiful words of Theocritus) 

II tremble and always follow the quiet wheels of the 
night," warn me that it is morning. Farewell. 



THE SHORT LYRIC. 



THE SHORT LYRIC. 

Many Guides to Literature give no rules for the 
manufacture of short lyrics, and nearly all of them 
omit to furnish the student with an example of this 
kind of composition. 

The cause of this unfortunate neglect (as I deem 
it) is not far to seek. Indeed in one Text Book 
(Mrs. Railston's Book for Beginners. Patteson. 12$. 6d.) 
it is set down in so many words. " The Short Lyric," 
says Mrs. Railston in her preface, "is practically in- 
nocent of pecuniary value. Its construction should 
be regarded as a pastime rather than as serious exer- 
cise; and even for the purposes of recreation, its 
fabrication is more suited to the leisure of a monied 
old age than to the struggle of eager youth, or the 
full energies of a strenuous manhood " (p. xxxiv.). 

The judgment here pronounced is surely erroneous. 
The short Lyric is indeed not very saleable (though 
there are exceptions even to that rule — the first Lord 
Tennyson is said to have received /200 for The 
Throstle) ; it is (I say) not very saleable, but it is of 
great indirect value to the writer, especially in early 
youth. A reputation can be based upon a book 
of short lyrics which will in time procure for its 
author Reviewing work upon several newspapers, 



j6 THE AFTERMATH 

and sometimes, towards his fortieth year, the editor- 
ship of a magazine ; later in life it will often lead to 
a pension, to the command of an army corps, or even 
to the governorship of a colony. 

I feel, therefore, no hesitation in describing at some 
length the full process of its production, or in pre- 
senting to the student a careful plan of the difficulties 
which will meet him at the outset. 

To form a proper appreciation of these last, it is 
necessary to grasp the fundamental fact that they all 
proceed from the inability of busy editors and readers 
to judge the quality of verse ; hence the rebuffs and 
delays that so often overcast the glorious morning of 
the Poetic Soul. 

At the risk of some tedium — for the full story is of 
considerable length — I will show what is their nature 
and effect, in the shape of a relation of what happened 
to Mr. Peter Gurney some years ago, before he 
became famous. 

Mr. Peter Gurney (I may say it without boasting) 
is one of my most intimate friends. He is, perhaps, 
the most brilliant of that brilliant group of young 
poets which includes Mr. John Stewart, Mr. Henry 
Hawk, &c, and which is known as the "Cobbley 
school," from the fact that their historic meeting- 
ground was the house of Mr. Thomas Cobbley, him- 
self no mean poet, but especially a creative, seminal 
critic, and uncle of Mr. Gurney. But to my example 
and lesson : — 

Mr. Gurney was living in those days in Blooms- 
bury, and was occupied in reading for the bar. 



THE SHORT LYRIC 77 

He was by nature slothful and unready, as is in- 
deed the sad habit of literary genius ; he rose late, 
slept long, eat heartily, drank deeply, read news- 
papers, began things he never finished, and wrote the 
ending of things whose beginnings he never accom- 
plished ; in a word, he was in every respect the man 
of letters. He looked back continually at the stuff he 
had written quite a short time before, and it always 
made him hesitate in his opinion of what he was 
actually engaged in. It was but six months before 
the events herein set down that he had written — 

" The keep of the unconquerable mind" — 
only to discover that it was clap-trap and stolen from 
Wordsworth at that. How, then, could he dare send 
off the sonnet — 

"If all intent of unsubstantial art" — 
and perhaps get it printed in the Nineteenth Century 
or the North American Review, when (for all he knew) 
it might really be very poor verse indeed ? 

These two things, then, his sloth and his hesitation 

in criticism, prevented Peter from sending out as 

much as he should have done. But one fine day of 

last summer, a kind of music passed into him from 

universal nature, and he sat down and wrote these 

remarkable lines : — 

11 He is not dead ; the leaders do not die, 
But rather, lapt in immemorial ease 
Of merit consummate, they passing, stand ; 
And rapt from rude reality, remain ; 
And in the Jinx and eddy of time, are still. 
Therefore I call it consecrate d sand 
Wherein they left their prints, nor overgrieve : 
An heir of English earth let English earth receive." 



7& THE AFTERMATH 

He had heard that Culture of Boston, Mass., U.S.A., 
paid more for verse than any other review, so he sent 
it off to that address, accompanied by a very earnest 
little letter, calling the gem " Immortality," and 
waiting for the answer. 

The editor of Culture is a businesslike man, who 
reads his English mail on the quay at New York, and 
takes stamped envelopes and rejection forms down 
with him to the steamers. 

He looked up Peter's name in the Red Booh, Who's 
Who, Burke, the Court Guide, and what not, and finding 
it absent from all these, he took it for granted that 
there was no necessity for any special courtesies ; 
Peter therefore, fifteen days after sending off his 
poem, received an envelope whose stamp illustrated 
the conquest of the Philippines by an Armed Liberty, 
while in the top left-hand corner were printed these 
simple words : "If not delivered within three days, 
please return to Box 257, Boston, Mass., U.S.A." 

He was very pleased to get this letter. It was the 
first reply he had ever got from an editor, and he 
took it up unopened to the Holborn, to read it during 
lunch. But there was very little to read. The original 
verse had folded round it a nice half-sheet of cream- 
laid notepaper, with a gold fleur de lis in the corner, 
and underneath the motto, "Devoir Fera"; then, in 
the middle of the sheet, three or four lines of fine 
copperplate engraving, printed also in gold, and run- 
ning as follows : — 

" The editor of Culture regrets that lie is unable 
to accept the enclosed contribution; it must not be 



THE SHORT LYRIC 79 

imagined that any adverse criticism or suggestion is 
thereby passed upon the work ; pressure of space, the 
previous acceptation of similar matter, and other causes 
having necessarily to be considered." 

Peter was so much encouraged by this, that he 
sent his verses at once to Mr. McGregor, changing, 
however, the word "rude" in the fourth line to 
"rough," and adding a comma after "rapt," points 
insignificant in themselves perhaps, but indicative of 
a critic's ear, and certain (as he thought) to catch the 
approval of the distinguished scholar. In twenty-four 
hours he got his reply in the shape of an affectionate 
letter, enclosing his MSS. : — 

" My dear Peter, 

" No ; I should be doing an injustice to my readers 
if I were to print your verse in the Doctrinaire ; but 
you must not be discouraged by this action on my 
part. You are still very young, and no one who has 
followed (as you may be sure I have) your brilliant 
career at the University can doubt your ultimate 
success in whatever profession you undertake. But 
the path of letters is a stony one, and the level of 
general utility in such work is only reached by the 
most arduous efforts. 1 saw your Aunt Phoebe the 
other day, and she was warm in your praises. She told 
me you were thinking of becoming an architect; I 
sincerely hope you will, for I believe you have every 
aptitude for that profession. Plod on steadily and I 
will go warrant for your writing verse with the best 
of them. It is inevitable, my dear Peter, that one's 
early verse should be imitative and weak; but you 
have the 'inner voice/ do but follow the gleam and 
never allow your first enthusiasms to grow dim. 
" Always your Father's Old Friend, 

"Archibald Wellington McGregor." 

Peter was a little pained by this ; but he answered 
it very politely, inviting himself to lunch on the 



80 THE AFTERMATH 

following Thursday, and then, turning to his verses, 
he gave the title " Dead," and sent them to the 
Patriot, from whom he got no reply for a month. 

He then wrote to the editor of the Patriot on a 
postcard, and said that, in view of the present de- 
plorable reaction in politics, he feared the verses, if 
they were held over much longer, would lose their 
point. Would the Patriot be so kind, then, as to let 
him know what they proposed to do with the Poem ? 

He got a reply the same evening : — 

" Telephone 239. " 36a, Clare Market, 

" Telegraph, ■ Yindex.' " W.C. 

" Dr. Sir, 

"Your estd. favor to hand. No stamp being en- 
closed with verses, we have retained same, but will 
forward on receipt of two stamps, including cost of 
this. 

" Faithfully yrs., 

"Alphonse Riphraim. 

" Please note change of address." 

By this Peter Gurney was so angered, that he 
walked straight over to his club, rang up No. 239, 
and told the editor of the Patriot, personally, by word 
of mouth, and with emphasis, that he was a Pro-Boer ; 
then he rang off before that astonished foreigner had 
time to reply. 

But men of Mr. Peter Gurney's stamp are not 
cast down by these reverses. He remembered one 
rather low and insignificant sheet called the Empire, 
in which a vast number of unknown names had been 
appearing af the bottom of ballads, sonnets, *"n so 
forth, dealing mainh with th<° foreign polic) of Great 



THE SHORT LYRIC 8 1 

Britain, to which country (as being their native land) 
the writers were apparently warmly attached. 

Peter Gurney flattered himself that he understood 
why the Empire made a speciality of beginners. It 
was a new paper with little capital, and thought 
(wisely enough) that if it printed many such juvenilia 
it would, among the lot, strike some vein of good 
verse. He had heard of such ventures in journalism, 
and remembered being told that certain sonnets of 
Mr. Lewis Morris, and even the earlier poems of 
Tennyson, were thus buried away in old magazines. 
He copied out his verses once more, gave them the 
new title " Aspiro," and sent them to the Empire. 
He got a very polite letter in reply : — 

" Dear Mr. I have read your verses with much 

pleasure, and see by them that the praise I have heard 
on all sides of your unpublished work was not un- 
merited. Unfortunately, the Empire cannot afford to 
pay anything for its verse ; and so large has been the 
demand upon our space, that we have been compelled 
to make it a rule that all contributions of this nature 
should pay a slight premium to obtain a space in 
our columns. But for this it would be impossible to 
distinguish between competitors without the risk of 
heartburnings and petty jealousies. We enclose our 
scale of charges, which are (as you see) purely nominal, 
and remain, awaiting your order to print, 
" Yours truly, 

" William Power." 

I need hardly tell you that Peter, on receiving this 
letter, put two farthings into an envelope addressed 
to William Power, and was careful not to register or 
stamp it. 

As for his Poem, he changed the title to " They 

G 



82 THE AFTERMATH 

Live ! " and sent it to the editor of Criticism. Next 
day he was not a little astonished to get his verses 
back, folded up in the following waggish letter : — 

" The Laurels, 

"20, Poplar Grove, 

" S.W. 
" Monday, the 21st of April. 
" Sir, 
" I am directed by the editor 
To say that lack of space and press of matter 
Forbid his using your delightful verses, 
Which, therefore, he returns. Believe me still 
Very sincerely yours, Nathaniel Pickersgill." 

Now not a little disconsolate, young Mr. Gurney 
went out into the street, and thought of Shavings as a 
last chance. Shavings gave a guinea to the best poem 
on a given subject, and printed some of the others sent 
in. This week he remembered the subject was a eulogy 
of General Whitelock. He did not hesitate, therefore, 
to recast his poem, and to call it a "Threnody" on 
that commander, neglecting, by a poetic fiction, the 
fact that he was alive, and even looking well after his 
eight months of hard work against the Warra-Muggas. 
He went into the great buildings where Shavings is 
edited, and saw a young man opening with immense ra- 
pidity a hand-barrowful of letters, while a second sorted 
them with the speed of lightning, and a third tied them 
into neat bundles of five hundred each, and placed them 
in pigeon-holes under their respective initial letters. 

" Pray, sir," said Peter to the first of these three 
men, " what are you doing ? " "I am," replied the 
functionary, "just finishing my week's work" (for it 
was a Saturday morning), " and in the course of these 



THE SHORT LYRIC S$ 

four hours alone I am proud to say that I have opened 
no less than seven thousand three hundred and two 
poems on our great Leader, some of which, indeed, 
have been drawn from the principal English poets, 
but the greater part of which are, I am glad to say, 
original." 

Embittered by such an experience, my friend 
Gurney returned to his home, and wrote that same 
afternoon the Satire on Modern Literature, in which 
he introduces his own verses as an example and 
warning, and on which, as all the world knows, his 
present fame reposes. 

To-day everyone who reads these lines is envious 
of Mr. Peter Gurney's fame. He is the leader of the 
whole Cobbley school, the master of his own cousin, 
Mr. Peter Davey, and without question the model 
upon which Mr. Henry Hawk, Mr. Daniel Witton, 
and Mr. John Stuart have framed their poetic manner. 
He suffered and was strong. He condescended to 
prose, and kept his verse in reserve. The result no 
poet can ignore. 

I should but mislead the student were I to pretend 
that Mr. Peter Gurney achieved his present reputa- 
tion — a reputation perhaps somewhat exaggerated, 
but based upon real merit and industry — by any 
spontaneous effort. Hard, regular, unflinching labour 
in this, as in every other profession, is the condition 
of success. But the beginner may say (and with 
justice), " It is not enough to tell me to work ; how 
should I set about it ? What rules should I follow ? " 
Let me pursue my invariable custom, and set down 

G — 2 



84 THE AFTERMATH 

in the simplest and most methodical form the elements 
of the Short Lyric. 

The student will, at some time or another, have 
suffered strong emotions. He will have desired to 
give them metrical form. He will have done so — and 
commonly he will have gone no further. I have 
before as I write a verse, the opening of one of the 
most unsuccessful poems ever written. It runs: — 

" I am not as my fathers were, 
I cannot pass from sleep to sleep, 
Or live content to drink the deep 
Contentment of the common air." 

This is very bad. It is bad because it proceeded 
from a deep emotion only, and shot out untrammelled. 
It has no connection with verse as an art, and yet 
that art lies open for any young man who will be 
patient and humble, and who will learn. 

His first business is to decide at once between the 
only two styles possible in manufactured verse, the 
Obscure and the Prattling. I say " the only two 
styles" because I don't think you can tackle the 
Grandiose, and I am quite certain you couldn't man- 
age the Satiric. I know a young man in Red Lion 
Square who can do the Grandiose very well, and I 
am going to boom him when I think the time has 
come ; but the Student-in-Ordinary cannot do it, so 
he may put it out of his head. 

I will take the Simple or Prattling style first. 
Choose a subject from out of doors, first because it is 
the fashion, and secondly because you can go and 
observe it closely. For you must know that manu- 
factured verse is very like drawing, and in both arts 



THE SHORT LYRIC 85 

you have to take a model and be careful of details. 
Let us take (e.g.) a Pimpernel. 

A Pimpernel is quite easy to write about ; it has 
remarkable habits, it is not gross or common. It 
would be much harder to write about grass, for 
instance, or parsley. 

First you write down anything that occurs to you, 
like this : — 

" Pretty little Pimpernel, 
May I learn to love you well ? " 

You continue on the style of " Twinkle, twinkle." 

" Hiding in the mossy shade, 
Like a lamp of — \j made, 
Or a gem by fairies dropt 
In their . . " 

and there you stick, just as you had got into the style 
of the " L' Allegro." I have no space or leisure to 
give the student the full treatment of so great a sub- 
ject, how he would drag in the closing and opening 
of the flower, and how (skilfully avoiding the word 
"dell") he would end his ten or fifteen lines by a 
repetition of the first (an essential feature of the 
Prattling style). I will confine myself to showing 
him what may be made of these ridiculous six lines. 

The first has an obvious fault. It runs too quickly, 
and one falls all over it. We will keep " Little " and 
put it first, so one might write " Little Purple Pim- 
pernel." But even that won't do, though the allite- 
ration is well enough. What change can we make ? 

It is at this point that I must introduce you to a 
most perfect principle. It is called the Mutation of 
Adjectives — it is almost the whole art of Occ. verse. 



86 THE AFTERMATH 

This principle consists in pulling out one's first obvious 
adjective, and replacing it by another of similar length, 
chosen because it is peculiar. You must not put in an 
adjective that could not possibly apply; for instance, 
you must not speak of the "Ponderous Rabbit" or 
the " Murky Beasts ; " your adjective must be appli- 
cable, but it must be startling, as " The Tolerant 
Cow," " The Stammering Minister," or " The Greasy 
Hill " — all quite true and most unexpected. 

Now, here it is evident that Purple is common- 
place. What else can we find about the Pimpernel 
that is quite true and yet really startling ? Let us 
(for instance) call it "tasteless." There you have 
it, " Little tasteless Pimpernel " — no one could read 
that too quickly, and it shows at the same time great 
knowledge of nature. 

I will not weary you with every detail of the pro- 
cess, but I will write down my result after all the 
rules have been properly attended to. Read this, and 
see whether the lines do not fit with my canons of 
art, especially in what is called the " choice of 
words : " — 

11 Little tasteless Pimpernel, 
Shepherd's Holt and warning spell 
Crouching in the cushat shade 
Like a mond of mowry made. . • ." 

and so forth. There you have a perfect little gem. 
Nearly all the words are curious and well chosen, and 
yet the metre trips along like a railway carriage. The 
simplicity lies in the method ; the quaint diction is 
quarried from Mr. Skeats' excellent book on etymo- 
logy ; but I need not point out any particular work, as 



THE SHORT LYRIC %7 

your u Thesaurus " in this matter is for your own 
choosing. 

So much for the Prattling style. 

As for the Obscure style, it is so easy that it is 
getting overdone, and I would not depend too much 
upon it. 

In its origins, it was due to the vagaries of some gen- 
tlemen and ladies who suffered from an imperfect 
education, and wrote as they felt, without stopping 
to think. 

But that first holy rapture cannot be recovered. 
We must work by rule. The rules attaching to this 
kind of work are six : — 

(i) Put the verb in the wrong place (some leave it 
out altogether) ; 

(2) Use words that may be either verbs or nouns- 
plurals are very useful ; 

(3) Punctuate insufficiently ; 

(4) Make a special use of phrases that have two or 
three meanings; 

(5) Leave out relatives ; 

(6) Have whole sentences in apposition. 

Some of our young poets have imagined that the 

mere use of strange words made up the Obscure style. 

I need not say that they were wrong. Thus, the 

lines— 

11 And shall I never tread them more, 
My murrant balks of wealden lathes ? " 

are singularly bad. Anyone could be obscure in so 
simple a fashion. It behoves the student rather to 
read carefully such lines as the following, in which I 



88 THE AFTERMATH 

have again tackled the Pimpernel, this time in the 
Obscure manner. 

I begin with " What Pimpernels," which might 
mean "What! Pimpernels?" or, "What Pimper- 
nels?" or again, "What Pimpernels/"; expressing 
surprise, or a question, or astonished admiration : but 
do you think I am going to give the show away by 
telling the reader what I mean ? Not a bit of it. 
There is something in our island temper which loves 
mystery : something of the North. I flatter myself I 
can do it thoroughly : — 

"What Pimpernels ; a rare indulgence blesses 
The winter wasting in imperfect suns 
And Fimpernels are in the waning, runs 
A hand unknown the careless winter dresses, 
Not for your largess to the ruined fells, 
Her floors in waste, I call you, Pimpernels." 

There ! I think that will do very fairly well. One 
can make sense out of it, and it is broad and full, like 
a modern religion ; it has many aspects, and it makes 
men think. There is not one unusual word, and the 
second line is a clear and perfect bit of English. Yet 
how deep and solemn and thorough is the whole ! 

And yet, for all my ability in these matters, I may 
not offer an example for the reader to follow. I am 
conscious of something more powerful (within this 
strict channel), and I am haunted reproachfully by a 
great soul. May I quote what none but She could 
have written ? It is the most perfect thing that 
modern England knows. Every lesson I might pain- 
fully convey there stands manifest, of itself, part of 
the Created Thing. 



THE SHORT LYRIC 89 

THE YELLOW MUSTARD. 

Oh ! ye that prink it to and fro, 
In pointed flounce and furbelow, 
What have ye known, what can ye know 
That have not seen the mustard grow ? 

The yellow mustard is no less 
Than God's good gift to loneliness ; 
And he was sent in gorgeous press, 
To jangle keys at my distress. 

I heard the throstle call again 
Come hither, Pain ! come hither, Pain ! 
Till all my shameless feet were fain 
To wander through the summer rain. 

And far apart from human place, 
And flaming like a vast disgrace, 
There struck me blinding in the face 
The livery of the mustard race. 

• • • • * 

To see the yellow mustard grow 
Beyond the town, above, below ; 
Beyond the purple houses, oh ! 
To see the yellow mustard grow ! 



THE INTERVIEW. 



THE INTERVIEW. 

It is now some years ago since I was sitting in 
Mr. Caliban's study, writing in his name upon the 
Balance of Power in Europe. I had just completed 
my article, and passed it to him to sign, when I 
noticed that he was too much absorbed in a book 
which he was reading to pay attention to my gesture. 
Men of his stamp enforce courtesy in others by 
their mere presence. It would have been impossible 
to have disturbed him. I turned to a somewhat more 
lengthy composition, which was also to appear above 
his signature, entitled, "The Effect of Greek Philo- 
sophy upon European Thought." When I had com- 
pleted my analysis of this profound historical influence, 
I thought that my master and guide would have freed 
himself from the net of the author who thus entranced 
him. I was mistaken. I had, however, but just begun 
a third article, of which the subject escapes me, when 
he turned to me and said, closing the book between 
his hands : 

" Will you go and interview someone for me?" 
I fear my sudden change of expression betrayed 
the fact that the idea was repugnant to one familiar 
rather with foreign politics and with the Classics than 
with the reporters' side of the paper. 



94 THE AFTERMATH 

Mr. Caliban looked at my collar with his kindly 
eyes, and kept them fixed upon it for some seconds. 
He then smiled (if such a man could be said to smile) 
and continued : 

" I want to tell you something . . ." 

There was profound silence for a little while, during 
which a number of thoughts passed through my mind. 
I remembered that Dr. Caliban was Editor at that 
moment of the Sunday Herald. I remembered that I 
was his right hand, and that without me the enor- 
mous labour he weekly undertook could never have 
been accomplished without trespassing upon the 
sanctity of the Sabbath. After a little hesitation, he 
pulled down his waistcoat, hitched his trousers at the 
knees, crossed his legs, made a half-turn towards me 
(for his study-chair was mounted upon a swivel), and 
said: 

"It's like this:— . . ." 

I assured him that I would do what he wished, for 
I knew, whenever he spoke in this tone, that there 
was something to be done for England. 

" It's like this," he went on, " I have found a man 
here who should count, who should tell. It is a fearful 
thought that such a mind can have remained so long 
hidden. Here is a man with something in him 
quite peculiar and apart — and he is unknown ! It 
is England through and through, and the best of 
England ; it is more than that. Even where I dis- 
agree with him, I find something like a living voice, 
He gets right at one, as it were . . . yet I never 
heard his'name ! " 



THE INTERVIEW 95 

Here Mr. Caliban, having stopped for a moment, 
as though seeking something in his memory, declaimed 
in a rich monotone : 

" Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear : 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 

There was a little silence. Then he said abruptly : 

11 Do you know Wordsworth's definition of a poet ? 
Take it down. I should like you to use it." 

I pulled out my note-book and wrote in shorthand 
from his dictation a sublime phrase, which was new 
to me : "A Poet is a man speaking to men." 

" This man," said Dr. Caliban simply, " is a man 
speaking to men." 

He put the book into my hands ; two or three of 
the leaves were turned down, and on each page so 
marked was a passage scored in pencil. The lines 
would have arrested my eye even, had a greater mind 
than my own not selected them. 

"A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke" 

" Tied wrist to bar for their red iniquitee." 

" To do butcher work " (he is speaking of war) "yer C 
don't want genlemen, 'cept to lead." 

"I got the gun-barrels red-hot and fetched the whipcord 
out of the cupboard, while the other man held the screaming , 
writhing thing down upon the floor." 

" Under whose (speaking of God) awful hand we hold ^ 
dominion over palm and pine." 

I have no space to quote a longer passage of verse, 
evidently intended to be sung to a banjo, and de- 



96 THE AFTERMATH 

scribing the emotions of the author in a fit of delirium 
tremens when he suffered from the hallucination that 
a red-hot brass monkey was himself attempting song. 
The poet showed no jealousy of the animal. There 
was the full, hearty Anglo-Saxon friendship for a 
comrade and even for a rival, and I met the same 
tone again on a further page in the line : 

u You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din." 

I looked up at Mr. Caliban and said : 

"Well?": — for these short phrases are often the 
most emphatic. 

" Well," said Dr. Caliban, " that man must not be 
allowed to go under. He must be made, and we 
must make him." 

I said that such a man could not fail to pierce 
through and conquer. He seemed the very salt and 
marrow of all that has made us great. 

Dr. Caliban laid his hand in a fatherly way upon 
my shoulder and said : 

II You are still young; you do not know how long 
fame may take to find a man, if the way is not 
pointed out to her ; and if she takes too long, some- 
times he dies of a broken heart." 

It was a noble thought in one who had known 
Fame almost from the very day when, as a lad of 
22 years old, he had stood up in the chapel at Barking 
Level and answered the preacher with the words, 
"Lord, here am I." 

Dr. Caliban continued in a few simple words to 
convince me that my foolish pride alone stood between 
this young genius and the fame he deserved. He 



THE INTERVIEW 97 

pointed out what a weight would lie upon my mind 
were that poet some day to become famous, and to be 
able to say when I presented myself at his receptions : 

11 Get ye hence : I know ye not ! " 

He added the awful words that death might find us 
at any moment, and that then we should have to 
answer, not for our reasons or our motives, but for 
the things we have done, and for the things we have 
left undone. He added that he would regard a visit 
to this new writer as overtime work, and that he was 
ready to pay my expenses, including cab fares to and 
from the station. He ended with an appeal which 
w r ould have convinced one less ready to yield : a 
magnificent picture of the Empire and of the Voice 
for which it had waited so long. 

• ••>•• 

It seems unworthy, after the relation of this inti- 
mate domestic scene, to add any words of exhortation 
to the reader and student. 

I will not pretend that the interview is a form of 
true literature. If I have been guilty of too great a 
confidence, my excess has proceeded from an earnest 
desire to watch over others of my kind, and to warn 
them lest by one chance refusal they should destroy 
the opportunities of a lifetime. 

To interview another, even a rival, is sometimes 
necessary at the outset of a career. It is an expe* 
rience that need not be repeated. It is one that no 
earnest student of human nature will regret. 

The powerful emotions aroused by the reminiscence 
of Dr. Caliban's eloquence, and of the meeting to 

H 



98 THE AFTERMATH 

which it led, must not be desecrated by too lengthy 
an insistance upon the mere technique of a subsidiary 
branch of modern letters. I will state very briefly 
my conclusions as to what is indispensable in the 
regulation of this kind of literature. 

It is, in the first place, of some moment that the 
young interviewer should take his hat and gloves with 
him in his left hand into the room. If he carries an 
umbrella or cane, this also should be carried in the same 
hand, leaving the right hand completely free. Its 
readiness for every purpose is the mark of a gentle- 
man, and the maintenance of that rank is absolutely 
necessary to the sans gem which should accompany a 
true interview. 

In the second place, let him, the moment he 
appears, explain briefly the object of his visit. With- 
out any such introduction as " The fact is . . ." 
11 It is very odd, but . . .", let him say plainly 
and simply, like an Englishman, " I have been sent 
to interview you on the part of such and such a 
paper." 

He will then be handed (in the majority of cases) a 
short type-written statement, which he will take into 
his right hand, pass into his left, in among the gloves, 
stick, hat, &c, and will bow, not from the shoulders, 
nor from the hips, but subtly from the central ver- 
tebrae. 

In the third place he will go out of the room. 

There are two exceptions to this general procedure. 
The first is with men quite unknown ; the second 
with men of high birth or great wealth. 



THE INTERVIEW 99 

In the first case, the hat and gloves should be laid 
upon a table and the stick leaning against it in such 
a way as not to fall down awkwardly in the middle of 
a conversation. The student will then begin to talk 
in a genial manner loudly, and will continue for about 
half-an-hour ; he will end by looking at his watch, 
and will go away and write down what he feels 
inclined. 

In the second case, he will do exactly the same, 
but with a different result, for in the first case he will 
very probably become the friend of the person inter- 
viewed, which would have happened anyhow, and in 
the second case he will be forbidden the house, a 
result equally inevitable. 

I cannot conclude these remarks without exhorting 
the young writer most earnestly, when he is entering 
upon the first of these distressing experiences, to place 
a firm trust in Divine Providence, and to remember 
that, come what may, he has done his duty. 

If he should have any further hesitation as to the 
general manner in which an interview should be 
written, he has but to read what follows. It consti- 
tutes the interview which I held with that young 
genius whom Mr. Caliban persuaded me to visit, and 
of whose fame I shall therefore always feel myself a 
part. 



H— 2 



IOO THE AFTERMATH 

INTERVIEW 

WITH HIM. 

(Written specially for the Sunday Englishman, by the Rev. JAMES 
Caliban, D.D.)* 

1 ' By (he peace among the peoples, men shall knoiu ye seme the 
Lord."" — Deuteronomy xvi. 7. 

. . . Leaping into a well-appointed cab, I was 
soon whirled to a terminus which shall be nameless, 
not a hundred miles from Brandon Street, and had 
the good luck to swing myself into the guard's van 
just as the train was steaming out from the platform. 
I plunged at once in medias res, and some two hours 
later alit in the sunny and growing residential town 
of Worthing. I hailed a vehicle which plied for hire, 
and begged the driver to conduct me to 29, Darbhai 
Road, " if indeed," to quote my own words to the 
Jehu, " if indeed it be worth a drive. I understand it 
is close upon a mile." 

" Yes, sir," replied the honest fellow, " You will 
find, sir, that it is quite a mile, sir. Indeed, sir, we 
call it a little over a mile, sir." 

I was soon whirled, as fast as the type of carriage 
permitted, to Laburnum Lodge, Darbhai Road, 
where a neat-handed Phyllis smilingly opened the 
door for me, and took my card up to her master, 
bidding me be seated awhile in the hall. I had the 
leisure to notice that it was lit by two stained glass 

* I reproduce the title in its original form. I was only too 
pleased to know that my work would appear above his signature ; 
nor do I see anything reprehensible in what is now a recognized 
custom among journalists. 



THE INTERVIEW IOI 

panels above the entrance, representing Alfred the 
Great and Queen Victoria. In a few minutes the 
servant returned with the message that her master 
would be down in a moment, and begged me to enter 
his parlour until he could attend me, as he was just 
then in his study, looking out of window at a cricket 
match in an adjoining field. 

I found myself in a richly-furnished room, sur- 
rounded by curious relics of travel, and I was delighted 
to notice the little characteristic touches that marked 
the personal tastes of my host. Several skulls adorned 
the walls, and I observed that any natural emotion 
they might cause was heightened by a few tasteful 
lines such as actors paint upon their faces. Thus 
one appeared to grin beyond the ordinary, another 
was fitted with false eyes, and all had that peculiar 
subtle expression upon which genius loves to repose 
in its moments of leisure. I had barely time to mark 
a few more notable matters in my surroundings, 
when I was aware that I was in the presence of my 
host. 

II No," or " Yes," said the great man, smiling 
through his spectacles and puffing a cloud of smoke 
towards me in a genial fashion, "I do not in the 
least mind telling you how it is done. I do not 
think," he added drily, " that any other fellows will 
pull quite the same chock-a-block haul, even if I do 
give them the fall of the halyard. You must excuse 
these technical terms ; I make it a point to speak as 
I write — I think it is more natural." 

I said I should be delighted to excuse him. 



102 THE AFTERMATH 

" 1 hope you will also excuse," he continued, " my 
throwing myself into my favourite attitude." 

I said that, on the contrary, I had long wished to 
see it. 

With a sigh of relief he thrust those creative hands 
of his into his trouser pockets, slightly stooped his 
shoulders, and appeared to my delight exactly as he 
does in the photograph he handed me for publication. 

II To show you how it is done, I cannot begin 
better than by a little example," he said. 

He went to a neighbouring table, rummaged about 
in a pile of the Outlook and Vanity Fair, and produced 
a scrap of paper upon which there was a type-written 
poem. His hands trembled with pleasure, but he 
controlled himself well (for he is a strong, silent kind 
of man), and continued : — 

" I will not weary you with the whole of this 
Work. I am sure you must already be familiar with 
it. In the Volunteer camp where I was recently 
staying, and where I slept under canvas like anybody 
else, the officers knew it by heart, and used to sing it 
to a tune of my own composition (for you must know 
that I write these little things to airs of my own). 
I will only read you the last verse, which, as is usual 
in my lyrics, contains the pith of the whole matter." 

Then in a deep voice he intoned the following, 

with a slightly nasal accent which lent it a peculiarly 

individual flavour : — 

"I'm sorry for Mister Naboth ; 
I'm sorry to make him squeak ; 
But the Lawd above me made me strawng 
In order to pummel the weak." 



THE INTERVIEW 103 

" That chorus, which applies to one of the most 
important problems of the Empire, contains nearly 
all the points that illustrate ' How it is Done.' In 
the first place, note the conception of the Law. It 
has been my effort to imprint this idea of the Law 
upon the mind of the English-speaking world — a 
phrase, by the way, far preferable to that of Anglo- 
Saxon, which I take this opportunity of publicly 
repudiating. You may, perhaps, have noticed that 
my idea of the Law is the strongest thing in modern 
England. ■ Do this because I tell you, or it will be 
the worse for you,' is all we know, and all we need 
to know. For so, it seems to me, Heaven " (here he 
reverently raised the plain billy-cock hat which he is 
in the habit of wearing in his drawing-room) " governs 
the world, and we who are Heaven's lieutenants can 
only follow upon the same lines. I will not insist 
upon the extent to which the religious training I 
enjoyed in early youth helped to cast me in that 
great mould. You have probably noticed its effect in 
all my work." 

I said I had. 

"Weil, then, first and foremost, I have in this 
typical instance brought out my philosophy of the 
Law. In my private conversation I call this ' following 
the gleam.' " 

" Now for the adventitious methods by which I 
enhance the value of my work. Consider the lilt. 
« Lilt ' is the ' Turn ti ti turn ti turn ' effect which you 
may have felt in my best verse." 

I assured him I had indeed felt it. 



104 THE AFTERMATH 

u Lilt," he continued, " is the hardest thing of all 
to acquire. Thousands attempt it, and hundreds 
fail. I have it (though I say it who should not) to 
perfection. It is the quality you will discover in 
the old ballads, but there it is often marred by curious 
accidents which I can never properly explain. Their 
metre is often very irregular, and I fancy that their 
style (which my Work closely resembles) has suffered 
by continual copying. No : where you get the true 
4 Lilt ' is in the music halls — I am sorry it is so often 
wasted upon impertinent themes. Do you know ' It 
is all very fine and large,' or • At my time of life,' or 
again, ' Now we shan't be long '? " 

I answered I had them all three by heart. 

" I shouldn't say they were worth that," he answered, 
as a shade of disappointment appeared upon his 
delicate, mobile features, " but there is a place where 
you get it to perfection, and that is Macaulay's Lays of 
Ancient Rome. They are my favourite reading. But 
that is another story." 

" To turn to quite a different point, the Vernacular. 
It isn't everything that will go down in ordinary 
English. Of course I do use ordinary English — at 
least, Bible English, in my best work. For instance, 
there is a little thing called " In the Confessional," 
which I propose to read to you later, and which has 
no slang nor swear-words from beginning to end." 

" But, of course, that is quite an exception. Most 
things won't stand anything but dialect, and I just 
give you this tip gratis. You can make anything 
individual and strong by odd spelling. It arrests the 



THE INTERVIEW IO5 

attention, and you haven't got to pick your words. 
Did you ever read a beautiful work called Colorado 
Bill ; or. From Cowboy to President ? Well, I can 
assure you that when it was in English, before being 
turned into dialect, it was quite ordinary-like." 

" But that ain't all. One has now and then to 
strike a deeper note, and striking a deeper note is so 
simple, that I wonder it has not occurred to others of 
our poets. You have got to imagine yourself in a 
church, and you must read over your manuscript to 
yourself in that kind of hollow voice — you know what 
I mean." 

I swore that I did. 

"Now, you see why one puts 'ye' for 'you,' and 
1 ye be ' for ' you are,' and mentions the Law in so 
many words. It is not very difficult to do, and when 
one does succeed, one gets what I call Ai copper- 
bottomed poetry." 

He went to a corner of the room, opened a large, 
scented, velvet-bound book upon a brass reading- 
desk, looked at me severely, coughed twice, and 
began as follows : 

" I am about to read you ' In the Confessional.' 
The greatest critic of the century has called this the 
greatest poem of the century. I begin at the third 
verse, and the seventeenth line: — 



" Lest he forget the great ally 
In heaven yclept hypocrisy, 
So help me Bawb ! I'll mark him yet- 
Lest he forget ! Lest he forget ! " 



106 THE AFTERMATH 

He closed the book with becoming reverence. 

And there was a silence, during which the grand 
words went on running in my head as their author 
had meant them to do. " Lest he forget ! Lest he 
forget ! " Ah, may heaven preserve its darling poet, 
and never let him fall from the height of that great 
message. 

" Well," said he, genially, anticipating my applause, 
" Good-bye. But before you go please let me beg 
you to tell the public that I lately wrote something 
for the Times a great deal better than anything else I 
have ever written. Nobody seems to read the Times" 
he continued, in a tone of slight petulance, " and I 
have not seen it quoted anywhere. I wonder if it is 
properly known ? Please tell people that that little 
note about 'copyright' is only for fun. Anyone may 
use it who likes — I had a paragraph put in the papers 
to say so. It's like this — " He then added a few 
conventional words of God-speed, and I left him. I 
have never seen him since. 

And yet . . . and yet . . . 

The student will now pardon me, I trust, if I go 
somewhat more deeply into things than is customary 
in text books of this class. That little conquest over 
pride, that little task honestly performed, earned me 
something I shall value for ever, something that will 
be handed down in our family " even unto the third 
and the fourth generation" (Habb. vii. 13). It is 
something that means far, far more to me than a 
mere acquaintance with an author could possibly 
have done. For who can gauge so volatile a thing 



THE INTERVIEW 107 

as friendship ? Who could with certitude have 
pointed me out and said, " There goes His friend" ? 
The Written Thing remained. 

In my room, nay, just above me as I write, hangs 
framed the following note in pencil. 

11 Awfully glad to see the stuff in the ' Herald,' 
but say — are you old Caliban ? That was rather stiff 
on a jack high ? Wasn't it ? Never mind.. You 
didn't ask me for my auto, but I send it herewith 
right along, for I like you." 

There is the Man Alone as He IS — . . . It 
seems of small moment, but there is something 
more. Framed in dark oak and gold very sump- 
tuously, and hanging quite apart, is the little shred 
of paper which He enclosed. Shall I whisper what 
is written upon it ? . . . ? ... The first few 
jotted notes of the glorious song which rang through 
the Empire like a bugle-call, and hurled it at Nica- 
ragua. 



Hark and attend my Chosen : Ye have heard me Mem.— Can a 

" 7 preposition begin 

ye People Zith a capital? 

Out of the East, 

with an introduction ? 
I came and the nations trembled: I bore the Mark na Jf^*.T^"^ 

With a BM BgHWswiKmgaaal } }ng ow j a Uan- 

glory about me ? 
of the Beast, 

And I made ye a hundred books — yea ! even an Good! 

hundred and one 
Of all the labours of men that labour under the 

sun, 



I08 THE AFTERMATH 

Second "yeap And I clad me about with Terrors: Yea! I 
leur tayi ' covered my paths with dread, 

And the women-folk were astonied at the horrible 
things I said. 

And the men of the Island Race were some of 

them woundily bored, 
But the greater part of them paid me well : and 

I praised the Lord. 
And when— as the spirit was full — I sniggered 

and lapped and swore 
Dick tay» " Days As ever did men before me, men of the days of 

of Tore " is com- vnvp 

monplace. Tore! ^^ 

Gore ? Lore t (r) 

More? proviiion. When-as the spirit was full— But when it was 

al: see Emily also , , c 

about it. rare and lOW 

I copied the Psalms at random ; and lo ! it was 
even so ! 

(Fill in here : ash HHH) 
Publisher 
Then up and arose the Daughter- Nations : Up and 
arose 
Uncle says that Fearless men reciting me fearlessly through the 

repetition is ° J ° 

Greek. Mem.— nose, 

plagiarism t Some of them Presbyterian, and some of them 

Jews, and some 
Frivolous. Of the Latter-Day Church, King Solomon's sect 
Chan 9'- — which is awfully rum. 

{Stuck.) 
. . . the lot of it . . . Anglo-Saxons . . . shout it 

aloud 
... at it again ? . . . back the crowd ? 
(Fill in. Mem. — must be consecutive) 

Things are not as they were (common-place) 

(delete) 
Things are not as they . . . Things and the 
Change . . . 
Things and . . . things . . . 
(Leave this to fill in) 

*fi* ^rt* w *7? vP "7v 



The interview 109 

And some of ye stand at a wicket, and they are 

the luckier men, 
But others field afar on a field, and ever and then, 
When-as the over is over, they cross to the other Whenat. Good. 

'3 n J Mem. — use *n 

side, > ,< Roreb: > 

A weary thing to the flesh and a wounding thing 

to the pride. 
And Cabinet Ministers play at a game ye should J 6 mU have t0 

all avoid, 
It is played with youngling bats and a pellet of 

celluloid, 
And a little net on a table, and is known as the 

named (better) 

Ping and the Pong. 
England, Daughter of Sion, why do you do this 

wrong ? 
And some, like witherless Frenchmen, circle 

around in rings, 
England, Daughter of Sion, why do you do these 

things ? 
Why do you . . . 

(Mem. — after Uncle to-morrow. Billy's : refuse 
terms.) 

These are the chance lines as they came— the dis- 
jointed words — everything — just as He wrote them 
down. 

Reader — or whatever you be — was that a small re- 
ward ? Are you willing now to say that Interviewing 
has no wages of its own ? Will you sneer at it as unfit 
to take its place in your art? Truly, " Better is he 
that humbleth himself than a pillar of brass, and a 
meek heart than many fastenings." 



PERSONAL PARS. 



THE PERSONAL PAR. 

Closely connected with the Interview, and forming 
a natural sequel to any treatise upon that Exercise, 
is the Personal Par. It contains, as it were, all the 
qualities of the Interview condensed into the smallest 
possible space; it advertises the subject, instructs 
the reader, and is a yet sharper trial of the young 
writer's character. 

The homely advice given in the preceding section, 
where mention was made of " pride " and of ''pockets," 
applies with far more force to the Personal Par. With 
the Interview, it is well to mask one's name ; with the 
Personal Par, it is absolutely necessary to conceal it. 
The danger the author runs is an attraction to Mrs. 
Railston, who in her book strongly advises this form 
of sport — she herself does Bess in All About Them. 
On the other hand, Lieut. -Col. Lory says, in his 
Journalist's Vade-mecum (p. 63) : " A Personal Par 
should never be penned by the Aspirant to Literary 
honours. Undetected, it renders life a burden of 
suspense ; detected, it spells ruin."* He quotes 
twenty-five well-known peers and financiers who rose 
by steadily refusing to do this kind of work during 
their period of probation on the press. 

* Let the student note, by way of warning, and avoid this officer's 
use of ready-made phrases. 

I 



114 THE AFTERMATH 

The present guide, which is final, will run to no 
such extremes. Secrecy is indeed essential ; yet there 
are three excellent reasons for writing Personal Pars, 
at least in early youth. 

(i.) The Personal Par is the easiest to produce of 
all forms of literature. Any man or woman, famous 
or infamous for any reason, is a subject ready to hand, 
and to these may be added all persons whatsoever 
living, dead, or imaginary ; and anything whatever 
may be said about them. Editors, in their honest 
dislike of giving pain, encourage the inane, and hence 
more facile, form of praise. Moreover, it takes but a 
moment to write, and demands no recourse to books 
of reference. 

(2.) The Personal Par can always be placed — if 
not in England, then in America. Though written in 
any odd moments of one's leisure time, it will always 
represent money ; and the whole of the period from 
July to October, when ordinary work is very slack, 
can be kept going from the stock one has by one. 

(3.) It has a high economic value, not only in the 
price paid for it, but indirectly, as an advertisement. 
This is a point which Lieut. -Col. Lory and Mrs. 
Railston both overlook. 

A short specimen, written in August, 1885, at the 
very beginning of the movement, by my friend, Mrs. 
Cowley (the Folk-Lorist, not the Poetess), for the 
Gazette, will make these three points clear : — 

" The capture of that rare bird, the Cross-tailed 
Eagle, which is cabled from St. Fandango's, recalls 
the fact that the famous Picture "Tiny Tots" was 



THE PERSONAL PAR 115 

formerly in the possession of the present Governor of 
that island. The picture is put up to auction by 
Messrs. Philpots next Saturday, and, judging by the 
public attendance at their galleries during the last 
fortnight, the bidding should be brisk." 

There is no such bird as the Cross-tailed Eagle, 
nor any such person as the Governor of St. Fandango's, 
nor indeed is there even any such island. Yet Mrs. 
Cowley was paid 55. by the Gazette for her little bit of 
research; it was copied into most of the papers, 
with acknowledgment, and she got a commission from 
Messrs. Philpots. The former owner of " Tiny Tots" 
(Mr. Gale of Kew, a wealthy man) wrote a long and 
interesting letter explaining that some error had been 
made, and that not he, but his wife's father, had 
been an Inspector* (not Governor) in St. Vincent's. He 
begged the writer to call on him — her call was the 
origin of a life-long friendship, and Mrs. Cowley was 
mentioned in his will. 

I must detain the student no longer with what is, 
after all, a very small corner of our art, but conclude 
with a few carefully chosen examples before proceeding 
to the next section on Topographical Essays. 

Examples. 

Wit and Wisdom of the Upper Classes, 

Her Royal Highness the Hereditary Grand Duchess 
of Solothurn was driving one day down Pall Mall 
when she observed a poor pickpocket plying his pre- 
carious trade. Stopping the carriage immediately, 
•Of what? 

1—2 



1 1.6. THE AFTERMATH 

she asked him gently what she could do for him. He 
was dumbfounded for a reply, and, withdrawing his 
hand from the coat-tail of an elderly major, managed 
to mumble out that he was a widower with a wife 
and six children who were out of work and refused to 
support him, though earning excellent wages. This 
reasoning so touched the Princess, that she imme- 
diately gave him a place as boot-black in the Royal 
Palace of Kensington. Discharged from this position 
for having prosecuted H.R.H. for six months' arrears 
of wages, he set up as a publican at the " Sieve and 
Pannier " at Wimbledon, a licence of some ten thou- 
sand pounds in value, and a standing example of the 

good fortune that attends thrift and industry. 

# # 

# 

It is not generally known that the late Lord Grum- 
bletooth rose from the ranks. His lordship was a 
singularly reticent man, and the matter is still 
shrouded in obscurity. He was, however, a poli- 
tician in the best sense of the word, and owed his 
advancement to the virtues that have made England 
famous. The collection of domestic china at Grum- 
bletooth House will vie with any other collection at 
any similar house in the kingdom. 

* # 

# 

Dr. Kedge, whose death was recently announced in 
the papers, was the son of no less a personage than 
Mr. Kedge, of the Old Hall, Eybridge. It is hardly 
fair to call him a self-made man, for his father paid a 
considerable sum both for his education and for the 
settlement of his debts on leaving the University. 



THE PERSONAL PAR U7 

But he was a bright-eyed, pleasant host, and will long 

be regretted in the journalistic world. 

# # 

# 

Lady Gumm's kindness of heart is well known. 
She lately presented a beggar with a shilling, and 
then discovered that she had not the wherewithal to 
pay her fare home from Queen's Gate to 376, Park 
Lane (her ladyship's town house). Without a mo- 
ment's hesitation she borrowed eighteen pence of the 
grateful mendicant, a circumstance that easily ex- 
plains the persecution of which she has lately been 

the victim. 

# # 
# 

Lord Harmbury was lately discovered on the top 
of a 'bus by an acquaintance who taxed him with the 
misadventure. " I would rather be caught on a 'bus 
than in a trap," said the witty peer. The mot has had 
some success in London Society. 

# # 
# 

Mr. Mulhausen, the M.F.H. of the North Down- 
shire Hunt, has recently written an article on 
" Falconry " for the Anglers World. The style of the 
"brochure" shows a great advance in "technique," 
and cannot fail to give a permanent value to his 
opinion on Athletics, Gentleman-farming, and all 
other manly sports and pastimes. Mr. Mulhausen 
is, by the way, a recently-elected member of the 
Rock-climbers' Club, and is devoted to Baccarat. 

# # 
# 

There is no truth in the rumour that Miss Finn- 
Coul, daughter of Colonel Wantage-Brown, was about 



Il8 THE AFTERMATH 

to marry her father's second wife's son by an earlier 
marriage, Mr. James Grindle-Torby. The Colonel is 
a strong Churchman, and disapproves of such unions 
between close relatives ; moreover, as CO., he has 
forbidden the young lieutenant (for such is his rank) 
to leave the barracks for a fortnight, a very unusual 

proceeding in the Hussars. 

# # 

# 

Lady Sophia Van Huren is famous for her repartee. 
In passing through Grosvenor Gate an Irish beggar 
was heard to hope that she would die the black death 
of Machushla Shawn. A sharp reply passed her lips, 
and it is a thousand pities that no one exactly caught 

its tenor ; it was certainly a gem. 

♦ # 
* 

It is well known that the Bishop of Pontygarry has 
no sympathy with the extreme party in the Church. 
Only the other day he was so incensed at a service 
held in Ribble-cum-Taut, that he fought the officiating 
clergyman for half an hour in his own garden, and 
extorted a complete apology. He also forbad anyone 
in the village ever to go to Church again, and himself 
attended the Methodist Chapel on the ensuing Sun- 
day. Had we a few more prelates of the same mettle 
things would be in a very different condition. 



THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE. 



THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE. 

The Topographical Article is so familiar as to need 
but little introduction. . . . Personally, I do not 
recommend it ; it involves a considerable labour ; 
alone, of all forms of historical writing, it demands 
accuracy ; alone, it is invariably un-paid. 

Nevertheless, there are special occasions when it 
will be advisable to attempt it ; as — in order to please 
an aged and wealthy relative ; in order to strike up a 
chance acquaintance with a great Family ; in order to 
advertise land that is for sale ; in order to prevent the 
sale, or to lower the price (in these two last cases it 
is usual to demand a small fee from the parties in- 
terested) ; in order to vent a just anger j in order to 
repay a debt; in order to introduce a "special" 
advertisement for some manure or other ; and so 
forth. Most men can recall some individual accident 
when a training in Topographical Writing would have 
been of value to them. 

There even arise, though very rarely, conditions 
under which this kind of writing is positively ordered. 
Thus, when the Editor of the Evening Mercury changed 
his politics for money on the 17th of September, 1899, 
all that part of his staff who were unable to drop 
their outworn shibboleths were put on to writing up 
various parts of London in the legal interval pre- 



122 THE AFTERMATH 

ceding their dismissal, and a very good job they made 
of it. 

Never, perhaps, were the five rules governing the 
art more thoroughly adhered to. A land-owning 
family was introduced into each ; living persons were 
treated with courtesy and affection ; a tone of regret 
was used at the opening of each ; each closed with a 
phrase of passionate patriotism ; and each was care- 
fully run parallel to the course of English History in 
general ; and the proper praise and blame allotted to 
this name and that, according to its present standing 
with the more ignorant of the general public* 

It was in this series (afterwards issued in Book 
form under the title, London! My London) that the 
following article — which I can put forward as an ex- 
cellent model— was the contribution of my friend, 
Mr. James Bayley. It may interest the young reader 
(if he be as yet unfamiliar with our great London 
names) to know that under the pseudonym of 
11 Cringle " is concealed the family of Holt, whose 
present head is, of course, the Duke of Sheffield. 

DISAPPEARING LONDON: MANNING 

GREEN. 

At a moment when a whole district of the metropolis 

is compulsorily passing into the hands of a soulless 

corporation, it is intolerable that the proprietors of 

land in that district should receive no compensation 

* The student will find a list of Historical Personages to praise 
and blame carefully printed in two colours at the end of Williams' 
Journalist's History of England. 



The topographical article 123 

for the historical importance of their estates. Man- 
ning Green, which will soon be replaced by the roar 
and bustle— or bustle and confusion, whichever you 
like — of a great railway station, is one of those centres 
whence the great empire-builders of our race pro- 
ceeded in past times. 

For many centuries it was a bare, bleak spot, such 
as our England could boast by the thousand in the 
rude but heroic days when the marvellous fortunes of 
the Anglo-Saxon race were preparing in the slow 
designs of Providence. For perhaps a generation it 
was one of those suburban villages that are said by a 
contemporary poet to " nestle in their trees." Doubt- 
less it sent forth in the sixties many brave lads to 
fight for the liberties of Europe in Italy or Denmark, 
but their humble record has perished. Such a thought 
recalls the fine lines of Gray : — 

" Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest ; 
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood." 

Twenty to twenty-five years ago the advancing tide 
of the capital of the world swept round this little out- 
lying place ; it was submerged, and soon made part 
of greater London. 

Relics are still to be discovered of the period when 
Manning Green had something rural about it, as 
Highgate and South Croydon have now. Thus " The 
Jolly Drover " (whose license was recently refused 
because it was not a tied house) recalls the great 
sheep-droves that once passed through the village 
from the north. It is now rare indeed to meet with a 
countryman driving his flock to market through the 



124 THE AFTERMATH 

streets of London, though the sight is not absolutely 
unknown. The present writer was once stopped in 
the early morning by a herd of oxen south of West- 
minster Bridge, and what may seem more remarkable 
•he has frequently seen wild animals in the charge of 
negroes pass through Soho on their way to the Hippo- 
drome. It is as Tennyson says : — 

" The old order changes, giving place to the new," 

until at last 

11 Beyond these voices there is peace." 
Another relic of the old village of Manning Green 
is the Court Baron, which is still held (how few Lon- 
doners know this !) once a year, for the purpose of 
providing a small but regular income to a relative of 
the Lord Chancellor. This Court was probably not 
held before the year 1895, but it is none the less of 
extreme interest to antiquarians. 

The first mention of Manning Green in history is in 
a letter to Edward Lord Cringle, the pioneer and ally 
of the beneficent reforms that remain inseparably 
associated with the name of the eighth Henry. This 
letter is written from prison by one Henry Turnbull, 
a yeoman, and contains these phrases : — 

" For that very certainly, my good Lord, I never did 
this thing, no, nor met the Friar nor had any dealing 
with him. And whatever I did that they say is treason 
I did it being a simple man, as following the Mass, 
which I know is welcome to the King's Majesty, and 
not knowing who it was that sang it, no, nor speaking 
to him after, as God knows. And, my dear Lord, I 
have had conveyed to yon, as yon know, my land of 
Horton with the Grey farm and the mere called Foul 
Marsh or Manning, having neither son nor any other 



THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE I 25 

but my own life only, and for that willingly would I 
give you this land, and so I have done ; and, my good 
Lord, speak for me at Court in this matter, remem- 
bering my gift of the land. . . ." 

This Turnbull was afterwards executed for treason 
at Tyburn. There is still a Turnbull in the parish, 
but as his father's name was Weissenstein he is very 
unlikely to have any connection with the original 
family of yeomen. 

The land (if land it could then be called) did not, 
oddly enough, remain long in the Cringle family. It 
was sold by Lord Edward to the Carmelites, and on 
the dissolution of that order was returned by the 
grateful monarch to its original owner. We next find 
11 Manning " or " Foul Marsh " drained during that 
period of active beneficence on the part of the great 
landlords which marked the seventeenth century. 
We are acquainted of this fact in our agricultural 
history by an action recorded in 1631, where it ap- 
pears that one Nicholas Hedon had gone to shoot 
snipe, as had been once of common right in the 
manor, and had so trespassed upon land " now 
drained at his lordship's charges, and by him en- 
closed." Hedon lost both ears, and was pilloried. 

Manning is probably alluded to also in a strong 
protest of the old Liberal blood* against ship-money, 
to which exaction it contributed 15. \d. The sum 
need not excite ridicule, as it represents quite 45. of 
our present currency. The vigorous protest of the 
family against this extortion is one of the finest 

* The Holts are still Liberal- Unionists. 



126 THE AFTERMATH 

examples of our sterling English spirit on the eve of 
the Civil War. The money was, however, paid. 

In the troubles of the Civil Wars Manning (now no 
no longer a marsh, but a green) was sold to John 
Grayling, but the deed of conveyance being protested 
at the Restoration, it was restored to its original 
owners at the intruder's charge by an action of Novel 
Disseizin. After Monmouth's rebellion, Manning was 
in danger of suffering confiscation, and was hurriedly 
sold to a chance agent (William Greaves) at so low a 
price as to refute for ever all insinuations of rapacity 
upon the part of its now ducal owners. It was happily 
restored by a grateful nation as a free gift after the 
glorious Revolution of 1688, and the agent, who had 
only acquired it by taking advantage of the recent 
troubles, was very properly punished. King William 
congratulated the family in a famous epigram, which a 
natural ignorance of the Taal forbids us to transcribe. 

In 1 718, Manning being still pasture of a somewhat 
spongy nature (Guy, in his report, calls it "soggy 
and poor land, reedy, and fit for little "), there was a 
rumour that the New River canal would pass through 
it, and it was sold to Jonathan Hemp. The New 
River was proved, however, in the pleadings before 
both Houses of Parliament, to have no necessity 
for this canal, and Hemp was compelled (as it 
was a mere speculation on his part) to sell it back 
again to its distinguished owner at a merely nominal 
price. 

Nothing further can be traced with regard to 
Manning Green (as it was now commonly called) till 



THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE 1 27 

the report in 1780 that coal had been found beneath 
it. Such a deposit so near the metropolis naturally 
attracted the attention of merchants, and the Family 
sold the place for the last time to a merchant of the 
name of Hogg for ^20,000. 

The report proved false ; yet, oddly enough, it was 
the beginning of Mr. Hogg's prosperity. 

We have no space to dwell on this interesting cha- 
racter. " Hogg's Trustees" are an ecclesiastical 
household word in our principal watering-places, and 
the " Hogg Institute " at Brighton is a monument of 
Christian endeavour. He was a shrewd bargainer, a 
just man, and upon his mantel-pieces were to be dis- 
covered ornaments in alabaster representing Joshua 
and Richard Cceur de Lion. 

The growth of the metropolis entered largely into 
Mr. Hogg's enlightened prevision of the future, and 
he obtained promises from a large number of people 
to build houses upon his land, which houses should, 
after a term of years, become his (Hogg's) property, 
and cease to belong to those who had paid to put 
them up. How Mr. Hogg managed to obtain such 
promises is still shrouded in mystery, but the universal 
prevalence of the system to-day in modern England 
would surely prove that there is something in our 
Imperial race which makes this form of charity an 
element of our power. 

Mr. Hogg's only daughter married Sir John 
Moss, Lord Mayor ; and Mr. Moss, the son, was 
the father of the present Lord Hemelthorpe. Thus 
something romantic still clings to poor Manning 



t 28 THE AFTERMATH 

Green, of which Lord Hemelthorpe was, until his 
recent bankruptcy, the proprietor. 

There is little more to be said about Manning 
Green. The Ebenezer Chapel has a history of its 
own, written by the Rev. Napoleon Plaything, son of 
Mr. Honey Q. Plaything, of Bismark, Pa. The success 
of the boys' club has been detailed in God's London,. 
by Mr. Zitali, of the " Mission to the Latin Races." 
The book is well worth buying, if only for this one 
essay, written, as it is, by a brand saved from the 
burning. Mr. Zitali was for a long time in the 
employ of Messrs. Mariana, the restaurant keepers, 
and no one is better fitted to deal strenuously with 
the awful problems of our great cities. 

Manning Green is about to disappear, and all its 
wonderful associations will become (in the words of 
Swinburne) 

" Smoke, or the smoke of a smoke." 

But until it disappears, and until its purchase price 
is finally fixed by the committee, its historical asso- 
ciations will still remain dear to those who (like the 
present writer) are interested in this corner of the 
Motherland. That men of our blood, and men 
speaking our tongue — nay, that those neither of our 
blood, nor speaking our tongue, but devoted to a 
common empire — will remember Manning Green 
when the sale is effected, is the passionate and heart- 
felt prayer of James Bayley. 



ON EDITING. 



J ON EDITING, 

I come now to that part of my subject where pure 
literature is of less moment than organization and 
the power of arrangement ; and the last two divi- 
sions of my great task concern work which has 
been written by others, and with which the jour- 
nalist has to deal in the capacity of manager rather 
than that of author. These are, a few notes upon 
editing, and some further remarks upon Revelations, 
that is, unexpected and more or less secret political 
announcements. 

I deal here first with editing, by which I do not 
mean the management of a whole newspaper — for 
this has no connection whatever with the art of 
letters— but the selection, arrangement, and anno- 
tating of work produced by another hand, and 
entrusted to the journalist for publication in his 
columns. The work is far easier than might appear 
at first sight. 
—The first rule in connection with it is to offend 
as little as possible, and especially to spare the 
living. 

^-/The second rule is to cut down the matter to fit 
the space at your disposal. With the exception of 

K— 2 



132 THE AFTERMATH 

a number of MSS. so small that they may be neglected 
in the calculation, it does not matter in the least what 
you cut out, so long as you remember that the parts 
remaining must make sense, and so long as you 
make this second rule fit in with the exigencies of 
the first. 

/ 'As for annotation, it is the easiest thing in the 
world. True to the general principle which governs 
all good journalism, that the giving of pleasure should 
always be preferred to the giving of pain, let your 
annotations pleasantly recall to the reader his own 
stock of knowledge, let them be as obvious as pos- 
sible, and let him not learn too much from your re- 
search. This method has the additional advantage, 
that it also saves you an infinity of trouble. 

The matter is really not so elaborate as to need any 
further comment. I will proceed at once to my 
example, prefacing it only with the shortest expla- 
natory statement, which will show how thoroughly it 
illustrates the rules I have just enunciated. 

The wife of one of the principal candidates for 
Parliament in our part of the country begged Dr. 
Caliban to publish a simple, chatty diary, which 
her sister (who was married to a neighbouring squire) 
had kept during some years. Dr. Caliban was too 
courteous to refuse, and had too profound an acquain- 
tance with the rural character to despise this kind of 
copy. On the other hand, he was compelled to point 
out that he could not allow the series to run through 
more than six months, and that he should, therefore, 
be compelled to cut it down at his discretion. Full 



ON EDITING 133 

leave was given him, and I do not think any man 
could have done the work better. 

Thus the lady's husband, though a good English- 
man in every other way (an indulgent landlord and a 
sterling patriot), was German by birth and language. 
Here was a truth upon which it would have been 
uncharitable and useless to insist — a truth which it 
was impossible to conceal, but which it was easy to 
glide over; and Dr. Caliban, as the student will 
see in a moment, glode over it with the lightest of 
feet. 

Again, a very terrible tragedy had taken place in 
the Burpham family, and is naturally alluded to by 
their near neighbour. It was impossible to cut out 
all mention of this unhappy thing, without destroying 
the diary ; but in Dr. Caliban's edition of the MS., 
the whole is left as vague as may be. 

The particular part which I have chosen for a 
model— I think the most admirable piece of editing I 
know — is from that week of the diary which concerns 
the outbreak of the recent difficulty with France, a 
difficulty luckily immediately arranged, after scarcely 
a shot had been fired, by the mutual assent of the 
two nations and (as it is whispered) by the direct 
intervention of High Authority. 

The motto which Dr. Caliban chose for the whole 
series (called, by the way, " Leaves from a Country 
Diary "), is a fine sentence from the works of Mr. 
Bagehot. 



134 THE AFTERMATH 

LEAVES FROM A COUNTRY DIARY. 

"An aristocratic body firmly rooted in the national soil is not 
only the permanent guarantee of the security of the State, but re- 
sembles, as it were, a man better instructed than his fellows— more 
prompt, possessed of ample means, and yet entrusted with power: 
a man moreover who never dies. 1 ' 

February 2nd, 19 — . — To-day is the Purification. 
The lawn looked lovely under its veil of snow, and the 
vicar came in to lunch. We did not discuss the 
question of the service, because I know that Reuben 
disapproves of it. The vicar told me that Mrs. Bur- 
pham is in dreadful trouble. It seems that the Bank 
at Molesworth refused to cash Algernon's cheque, 
and that this led Sir Henry Murling to make inves- 
tigations about the Chattington affair, so that he had 
to be asked to resign his commission. To be sure it 
is only in the Militia, but if it all comes out, it will be 
terrible for the Monsons. They have already had to 
dismiss two servants on these grounds. Jane has a 
sore throat, and I made her gargle some turpentine 
and oil ; Ali Baba's* hock is still sore. I do hope I 
shall keep my old servants, it is an unwelcome thing 
to dismiss them in their old age and the house is never 
the same again. They meet to-morrow at Gumpton 
corner, but not if this weather holds. 

February yd, 19 — . — It is thawing. There are 
marks of boots across the lawn on what is left of the 
snow, and I am afraid some one must have gone 
across it. I wish Reuben would come back. Called 

* The pet name of the white pony. The name is taken from the 
Arabian Nights, 



ON EDITING 135 

at Mrs. Burpham's, who is in dreadful trouble. 
Algernon has gone up to town to see his solicitor. 
Poor Mrs. Burpham was crying ; she is so proud of 
her boy. He says it will be all right. They are very 
bitter against the Bank, and Sir Henry, and the 
regiment, and the Monsons. I fear they may quarrel 
with Binston Park* also. Mrs. Burpham was so 
curious about them ; Jane is no better. 

February $th f 19 — . — Reuben came home suddenly 
by the 2.40 with Mr. Ehrenbreitstein and Lord 
Tenterworth. He asked me to put Mr. Ehrenbreit- 
stein in the Blue room and Lord Tenterworth in the 
Parrot room opposite the broom and pail place, 
where Aunt Marjory used to sleep. I shall have to 
clear the clothes out of the drawers. Just before 
dinner Mr. Bischoffen came in from the station. 
Reuben told me he had asked him. I wish he would 
give me longer notice. He brought a secretary with 
him who cannot talk English. I think he must be a 
Spaniard — he is so dark. Jane can hardly speak, 
her throat is so bad ; I told her she might stay in bed 
to-morrow till nine. 

February 5^, 19 — . — Mrs. Burpham is certainly in 
dreadful trouble. She tells me Algernon has written 
from St. Malo saying it will be all right. It was very 
foolish and imprudent of him to go over there just 

* The use of the name of an estate in the place of the name of its 
owner or owners is very common with the territorial class in our 
countrysides. Thus, people will say, " I have been calling at the 
Laurels," or " I dined with the Monkey Tree " ; meaning, " I have 
been calling upon Mrs. So-and-So," or, "I have been dining with 
Sir Charles Gibbs." 



T36 THE AFTERMATH 

now with all this trouble on with France. If only 

he had stayed at home (Mrs. Burpham says) she 

would not have minded so much, but she is afraid of 

his getting killed. It seems they are so savage at 

St. Malo.* Only the other day an English lady had 

a stone thrown in her direction in the street. Mr. Bis- 

choffen's secretary is not a Spaniard ; I think he is a 

Pole ; his name is Brahms. There was a difficulty 

about the asparagus last night. It seems the Germans 

do not eat it with their fingers. Reuben said I ought 

to have got little silver pincers for it. I remember 

seeing them in his father's house, but papa said they 

were very vulgar. Then Reuben used to apologise for 

them, and say that his people were old fashioned, 

which was nonsense, of course. I reminded Reuben 

of this, and he said, " Ach ! Gott ! " and I had to leave 

the room. Ali Baba is all right ; he took a piece of 

sugar from my hand ; but when I felt his hock he 

kicked Jones severely. I fear Jones is really injured, 

and I have sent for Dr. Minton and for the veterinary 

surgeon. 

February 6th, 19 — .—Dr. Minton dined here last 
night before going to set Jones' leg, and I gave the 
veterinary surgeon supper in the old schoolroom. I 
am afraid Dr. Minton took too much wine, for he 
quarrelled with Mr. Ehrenbreitstein and Mr. Bischoffen 
about the danger of war with France. He said they 
had no right to speak, and got quite excited. Called 
again on Mrs. Burpham, and only appreciated fully 
to-day in what sad trouble she is. Algernon has 
* A seaport in Britanny. 



ON EDITING 137 

telegraphed from Paris saying it will be all right. 
Meanwhile she has certainly quarrelled with Binston 
Park, and she even spoke bitterly against the Duke, 
so that means another family gone — for the Duke is 
very proud. I see in the Standard that our Am- 
bassador has delivered an ultimatum, and that the 
French are doing all they can to shirk war. That is 
what Mr. Bischoffen and Reuben said they would do, 
but they must be taught a lesson. Newfoundlands 
have fallen, but Reuben says they must rise after the 
war. I do hope they will. The dear Bishop called. 
He says this war is a judgment on the French. Jane 
is much better, and can talk quite clearly, and Ali 
Baba is almost well. Also it has thawed now com- 
pletely, and they can meet on Saturday as usual, so 
things are looking up all round. 

February yth, 19 — . — Freddie goes to the Isle of 
Wight with the Lambtonshire Regiment, and Mrs. 
Burpham and the Bishop are both delighted, because 
it will bring him and Hepworth together. It would 
be such a solace to poor Mrs. Burpham if Freddie 
could see active service and get promotion ; it would 
help to wipe out Algernon's disgrace, for I fear there 
is now no doubt of it, though he says it is all right in 
his last letter, which is from Marseilles. Letters 
still come through from France, because our Am- 
bassador said that if any tricks were played with them 
he would hold the French Government personally 
responsible, and so cowed them. The Bishop has 
gone to London with his family. 

February $th, 19— .—The Standard has a large map of 



I38 THE AFTERMATH 

the North of France, where the fighting will be. It 
is very interesting. Reuben and his friends have 
gone up to town again. I saw the Reserves marching 
through Molesworth to-day ; they are going to 
garrison Portsmouth.* The afternoon post did not 
come in. Reuben said he would telegraph, but I 
have not got any message. The 12.40 train was an 
hour late, so I suppose everything is upset by the 
war. Maria will have to come home by Bale, and I 
do so dread the passage from Ostend for her ; even 
the hour from Calais to Dover is more than she can 
bear. The vicar says that our Government will 
force the French to keep the Dover-Calais route open 
for civilians. He says it would be against the practice 
of civilised warfare to close it, and if that were done 
we should lay waste the whole country ; but I fear he 
does not know much about the legal aspect of the 
thing : it is his heart, not his head that speaks. It is 
dreadful to think what I shall do with Mademoiselle! 
when she comes home with Maria. One can't blame 
her when one thinks that it is her own country that 
is going to be harried and her own brothers brought 
here as prisoners ; but it will be very difficult all the 
same. The man who was killed at Bigley races was 
not a Frenchman after all : the crowd only thought 
he was because he had blacked his face like a negro. 
It seems that Sir Henry was very hard in court, and 
said that the ringleaders were lucky not to be indicted 

* A large military port and dockyard on the coast of Hampshire, 
f The generic term among the wealthy for French menials of the 
weaker sex. 



ON EDITING I39 

for manslaughter. It has frozen again, and it is very 
slippery in the drive. They are having fireworks or 
something at Portsmouth, to judge by the sound. 
Jones told Jane he thought there was a bonfire as 
well, because he could see a glare now and then in the 
sky from the window in his room. His leg is setting 
nicely. 



ON REVELATIONS. 



ON REVELATIONS. 

Revelations, again, as we found to be the case with 
editing, do not properly constitute a department of 
the art of letters. Though they are of far more im- 
portance than any other branch of contemporary 
journalism, yet it is impossible to compare their 
publication to a creative act of pure literature. 

It may be urged that such Revelations as are 
written in the office of the newspaper publishing 
them are not only literature, but literature of a very 
high order. They are, on the face of it, extremely 
difficult to compose. If they are to have any chance 
of deceiving the public, the writer must thoroughly 
know the world which he counterfeits ; he must be 
able to copy its literary style, its air, its errors. It 
is even sometimes necessary for him to attempt the 
exquisitely subtle art of forgery. 

The objection is well found ; but it is not of this 
kind of Revelation that I propose to speak. It be- 
longs to the higher branches of our art, and is quite 
unsuited to a little elementary manual. 

The Revelation I speak of here is the ordinary 
type of private communication, domestic treason, or 
accidental discovery, dealing, as a rule, with public 
affairs, and brought to the office spontaneously by 
servants, colonial adventurers, or ministers of religion. 



144 THE AFTERMATH 

Nine Revelations out of ten are of this kind ; and 
the young journalist who may desire to rise in his 
great calling must make himself thoroughly familiar 
with the whole process by which they are to be 
procured and published. 

A small amount of additional matter has, indeed, 
sometimes to be furnished, but it is almost insigni- 
ficant, and is, moreover, of so conventional a nature, 
that it need not trouble us for a moment. Some such 
phrase as "We have received the following communi- 
cation from a source upon which we place the firmest 
reliance," will do very well to open with, and at the 
end : " We shall be interested to see what reply can 
be given to the above," is a very useful formula. 
Thus the words " To be continued," added at the end 
are often highly lucrative. They were used by the 
Counter des Frises (a first-class authority on such 
matters), when it recently published a number of 
private letters, written (alas !) in the English tongue, 
and concerning the noblest figure in English politics. 

But though there is little to be done in the way of 
writing, there is a considerable mental strain involved 
in judging whether a particular Revelation will suit 
the proprietor of the newspaper upon which one is 
employed, and one must not unfrequently be pre- 
pared to suffer from exhausting terrors for some 
weeks after its publication. 

Difficult as is the art of testing Revelation, the rules 
that govern it are few and simple. The Revelator, if 
a domestic servant, wears a round black bowler hat 
and a short jacket, and a pair of very good trousers 



ON REVELATIONS 145 

stolen from his master ; he will be clean shaven. If 
an adventurer or minister of religion, he will wear a 
soft felt hat and carry a large muffler round his throat. 
Either sort walk noiselessly, but the first in a firm, 
and the second in a shuffling manner. I am far from 
saying that all who enter newspaper offices under 
this appearance bear with them Revelations even of 
the mildest kind, but I do say that whenever 
Revelations come, they are brought by one of these 
two kinds of men. 

I should add that the Revelator like the money- 
lender, the spy, and every other professional man 
whose livelihood depends upon efficiency is invariably 
sober. If any man come to you with a Revelation 
and seem even a trifle drunk, dismiss him without 
inquiry, though not before you have admonished 
him upon his shame and sin, and pointed out the 
ruin that such indulgence brings upon all save the 
wealthy. 

- When a man arrives who seems at all likely to 
have a Revelation in his pocket, and who offers it for 
sale, remember that you have but a few moments in 
which to make up your mind ; put him into the little 
room next to the sub-editor, take his MS., tell him 
you will show it to your chief, and, as you leave him, 
lock the door softly on the outside. 

The next moment may decide your whole career. 
You must glance at the Revelation, and judge in that 
glance whether the public will believe it even for two 
full hours. The whole difference between a success- 
ful and an unsuccessful journalist lies in that power 

L 



I46 THE AFTERMATH 

of sudden vision ; nor will experience alone achieve 
it, it must be experience touched with something like 
genius. 

Libellous matter you can delete. Matter merely 
false will not be remembered against you ; but if that 
rare and subtle character which convinces the mob 
be lacking, that is a thing which no one can supply in 
the time between the Revelator's arrival and the 
paper's going to press. 

Finally, when you have made your decision, return, 
unlock, pay, and dismiss. Never pay by cheque. 
Remember how short is the time at your disposal. 
Remember that if your paper does not print a really 
good Revelation when it is offered, some other paper 
will. Remember the Times, the Chronicle, and Major 
Esterhazy. Remember Mr. Gladstone's resignation. 

. . . Remember the " Maine." 

A few practical instances will help us to understand 
these abstract rules. 

Consider, for instance, the following — one of the 
wisest acts of Dr. Caliban's whole life. 

Dr. Caliban was busy writing a leader for the 
Sunday Englishman upon " Hell or Immortality"; for 
it was Saturday night, he had just received the 
weekly papers, and, as he well said, "A strong 
Sunday paper has this advantage, that it can do what 
it likes with the weeklies." 

He was, I say in the midst of Hell or Immortality, 
when he was interrupted by a note. He opened it, 
read it, frowned, and passed it to me, saying ; — 

" What do you make of this ? " 



ON REVELATIONS 1 47 

The note ran : — 

• 
" I have just been dismissed from the Spectator for 
sneezing in an indelicate manner. I have a Revelation 
to make with regard to the conduct of that paper. 
Please see me at once, or it may be too late. I have 
with me a letter which the Spectator will publish next 
week. It throws a searching light upon the Editor's 
mind, and lays bare all the inner workings of the 
paper. Price 40s." 

I told Dr. Caliban, that in my opinion, on the one 
hand, there might be something in it ; while on the 
other hand, that there might not. 

Dr. Caliban looked at me thoughtfully and said : 

" You think that ? " 

He touched an electric bell. As this did not ring, 
he blew down a tube, and receiving no answer, nor 
indeed hearing the whistle at the other end, he sent a 
messenger, who, by some accident, failed to return to 
the editorial office. Dr. Caliban himself went down 
and brought up the stranger. He was a young man 
somewhat cadaverous. He repeated what he had 
said in his note, refused to bargain in any way, 
received two sovereigns from Dr. Caliban's own purse, 
sighed deeply, and then with a grave face said : 

14 It feels like treason." 

He pressed his lips hard together, conquered him- 
self, and left us with the utmost rapidity. 

When Dr. Caliban and I were alone together, he 
opened the sealed envelope and read these words, 
written on a little slip of foolscap : 

" The following letter is accepted by the Spectator, and 
will be printed next week." To this slip was pinned a 

l — 2 



148 THE AFTERMATH 

rather dirty half sheet of note paper, and on this was 
the following letter : 

Balcarry Castle, 

County Mayo. 
Jan. 19th, 1903. 
To the Editor of the Spectator. 
Dear Sir, 

Among your humorous Irish stories perhaps the 
following will be worthy to find a place. A dear 
uncle of mine, my father's half brother, and the 
husband of the talented E. J. S., was bishop of Killi- 
bardine, a prelate of great distinction and considerable 
humour. 

I well remember that somewhere in the summer of 
1869, his valet having occasion to call unexpectedly 
upon a relative (butler to the Duke of Kerry), the 
latter observed " Indade, an' shure now an* is that 
yourself, Pat, Pat asthor, at all, at all," to which the 
witty fellow answered, with the true Irish twinkle in 
his eye, u Was your grandfather a monkey ? " 
I am very faithfully yours, 

The MacFfin. 

Dr. Caliban was heartily amused by the tale, and 
told me that he had met the MacFfin some years ago 
at Lady Marroway's. 

" Nevertheless," he added, I don't think it would 
be fair to comment on the little story ... I had 
imagined that something graver was toward . . V 

He never spoke again of the small outlay he had 
made, and I afterwards found that it had been 



ON REVELATIONS 1 49 

included in the general expenses of the paper. I 
have never forgotten the lesson, nor since that date 
have I ever accepted MSS. and paid for it without 
making myself acquainted to some extent with the 
subject. A little such foresight upon that occasion 
would have convinced us that a letter of this kind 
would never have found a place in a review of the 
calibre of the Spectator. 

Contrast with Dr. Caliban's wise and patriotic con- 
duct upon this occasion the wickedness and folly of 
the Evening German in the matter of the Cabinet Crisis. 

For some time the saner papers, which see the 
Empire as it is, had been issuing such placards as 
" He must go," " Make room for Joseph " and other 
terse and definite indications of a new policy. 

The Evening German had for several days headed 
its leading article, " Why don't he resign ? " 

A member of the unscrupulous gang who ever lie in 
wait for whatever is innocent and enthusiastic called, 
just before press, upon the editor of the Evening 
German, passing himself off as the valet of the 
minister whose resignation was demanded. He 
produced a small sheet of MSS., and affirmed it to be 
the exact account of an interview between the minister 
and his doctor, which interview the valet had over- 
heard, " concealed," as he put it " behind an arras." 
He said it would explain the situation thoroughly. 
He received no less than 25 guineas, and departed. 

Now let the student read what follows, and ask 
himself by what madness a responsible editor came 
to print a thing so self-evidently absurd. 



I50 THE AFTERMATH 



WHY HE DOES NOT RESIGN ! 

We have received upon an unimpeachable authority 
the verbatim account of an interview between him 
and his medical adviser, which we think thoroughly 
explains the present deadlock in Imperial affairs. 
We are assured upon oath that he was in bed .when 
the doctor called just before noon yesterday, and that 
the following dialogue took place : — 

Minister (in bed) — Good morning, Doctor, I am 
glad to see you. What can I do for you ? . . . 
I mean, I am glad to see you. Pray excuse the in- 
advertence of my phrase, it is one that I have lately 
had to use not a little. 

Doctor — Pray let me look at your tongue and feel 
your pulse. So. We are getting along nicely. At 
what hour were you thinking of rising ? 

Minister — At twelve, my usual hour. I see no 
reason for lying in bed, Doctor. (There was a despairing 
tone in this phrase). I am well enough, Doctor, well 
enough. (Here he gazed sadly out of the windoiv into St. 
James's Park). I am a Minister, but I cannot minister 
to a mind diseased (this rather bitterly). There is 
nothing the matter with me. 

Doctor (cheerily) — My dear Mr. , do not talk 

so. You will be spared many, many useful years, I 
hope. Indeed, I am sure. There is, as you say, 
nothing the matter — nothing organically the matter ; 
this lassitude and nervous exhaustion from which you 
suffer is a distressing, but a common symptom of 



ON REVELATIONS 151 

mental activity. (Here the doctor dived into a black bag). 
Let me sound the chest. 

Minister — Will it hurt? (This was said rather 
anxiously). 

Doctor — Not a bit of it. I only wish to make 
assurance doubly sure— as we say in the profession. 
(He put the stethoscope to the chest of the Cabinet Minister). 
Now. draw a deep breath . . . no, deeper than 
that ... a really deep breath. 

Minister (gasping)— I can't. 

Doctor — Tut, tut. . . . Well, it's all a ques- 
tion of lungs. (Here he moved the stethoscope again). 
Now sing. 

Minister — La! La! . . . La! 

Doctor — Nothing wrong with the lungs. Only a 
little feeble perhaps. Do you take any exercise ? 

Minister (wearily) — Oh ! yes ... I walk 
about. ... I used to walk a lot in Ireland. 

. . . I'm not like Ch n ; he never takes 

any exercise (bitterly) ; but then, he was brought up 
differently. (Sadly) Oh Doctor! I am so tired 1 

. . . My back aches. 

Doctor — Well, Mr. , a little rest will do you 

all the good in the world. You have the Easter 
recess in which to take a thorough rest. Do not lie 
in bed all day ; get up about five and drive to your 
club. Whatever you do, don't write or think, and 
don't let them worry you with callers. (The Doctor 
here prepared to leave). 

Minister (hopelessly) — Doctor . . . there is some^ 
thing I want to ask you. . . . Can't I give it up ?. 



152 THE AFTERMATH 

Doctor (/irmly) — No, Mr. , no. Upon no 

account. I have told your uncle and your cousins so 
fifty times. It is a point upon which I must be firm. 
Politics are a necessity to you all. I would not 
answer for you if it were not for politics. (Sympathe- 
tically) You are none of you strong. 

Minister (heaving a deep sigh) — No. I am not 
strong. . . . Alas ! . . . Chaplin is. But 
then, Chaplin's built differently. ... I wish you 
would let me give it up, Doctor ? 

Doctor (kindly) — No, my dear Mr. , No ! Pray 

put such thoughts out of your head. Every man 
must occupy his brain and body. Most men discover 
or choose an occupation, but I have not been a family 
doctor for thirty years without distinguishing these 
from such rare organisms as yours — and your family's. 
The House of Commons is the saving of you. (The 

Doctor here paused, gazed anxiously at Mr. , and said 

slowly) Perhaps, though, you take your work too 
seriously. It is often so with highly strung men. 
Do as little as you can. 

Minister — I do . . . but still it wearies me 
inexpressibly. 

Doctor — Not so much as writing a book would, or 
travel, or country walks. 

Minister (shaking his head) — I never felt so tired 
after " It May be True," nor even after " I Greatly 
Doubt It," as I do now (smiling a little). They sold well. 

Doctor — And why ? Because you were engaged 

in politics. Believe me, dear Mr. , without that 

one regular employment you would do little or 



ON REVELATIONS 153 

nothing. It is the balance-wheel that regulates your 
whole system. Change the rules, and, if you will, 
limit debate to a minimum, but do not think of giving 
up the one thing that keeps up your circulation. 
More men die from inanition than I care to tell you. 

Minister — Very well, Doctor . . . (weakly 
and quietly) it is nearly one ; I must sleep . . . 
Good-bye. 

The Doctor here went out on tip-toe. The Minister slept. 
There was a great silence. 

The Evening German suffered severely, and would 
have been ruined but for the prompt action of the 
Frankfort House ; and the whole incident shows as 
clearly as possible what perils surround the most 
tempting, but the most speculative, sort of journal- 
istic enterprise. 

The student may tell me — and justly — that I have 
offered him none but negative examples. I will com- 
plete his instruction by printing one of the best 
chosen Revelations I know. 

At the time when a number of letters addressed to 
Mr. Kruger by various public men were captured, 
and very rightly published, a certain number were, 
for reasons of State, suppressed. To Dr. Caliban, 
reasons of State were no reasons; he held that no 
servant of the people had a right to keep the people 
in ignorance. 

Within a week, a detective in his employ had 
brought a little sheaf of documents, which, judged by 
internal evidence alone, were plainly genuine. 



154 THE AFTERMATH 

They were printed at once. They have never 
since been challenged. 

I. 

497, Jubilee Row, 

B'ham, 

19.7/99- 

Dear Sir. — We must respectfully press for the pay- 
ment of our account. The terms upon which the 
ammunition was furnished were strictly cash, and, as 
you will see by the terms of our letter of the 15th 
last, we cannot tolerate any further delay. If we do 
not hear from you relative to same by next mail, we 
shall be compelled to put the matter into the hands of 
our solicitors. 

Yours, &c, 

John Standfast, 

Pro Karl Biffenheimer and Co. 

II. 
Yacht Fltur de Lys. 
tythxu ne gaigtu. 

Palerme, 

Sicile. 
Ci, la feste de TAssomption de la T.S.V. 
(Vieux Style) 
L'an de N.S.J.C. MCM. 

(1900). 
Monsieur Mon Frere. — Nous vous envoyons nos 
remerciemens pour vos souhaits et vous assurons de 



ON REVELATIONS 1 55 

la parfaicte amictie qui liera toujours nos couronnes 
allies. Faictes. Continuez. 

Agre*ez, Monsieur Mon Frere, l'assurance de notre 
consideration Royale la plus distinguee. 

Orleans, 

pour le Roy, 

Chetif. 
Vu, pour copie conforme, 

Le Seneschal, Bru. 

III. 

Offices of the Steele, 
Paris, 
Chef-lieu of the 
department of the Seine, 
France. 
6, Thermidor, 108. 
My good Kruger. — It is evidently necessary that I 
should speak out to you in plain English. I can't go 
into a long dissertation, but if you will read the books 
I send herewith, The Origin of Species, Spencer's 
Sociology, Grant Allen's Evolution of the Idea of God, 
&c, you will see why I can't back you up. As for 
your contemptible offer, I cast it back at you with dis- 
dain. My name alone should have protected me 
from such insults. I would have you know that my 
paper represents French opinion in England, and is 
now owned by an international company. I am the 
irremovable editor. 

Yours with reserve, 

Yves Guyot. 



156 THE AFTERMATH 

P.S.— I have been a Cabinet Minister. I send you 
a circular of our new company. It is a good thing. 
Push it along. 

IV. 
The Chaplaincy, 

Barford College, 

Old St. Winifred's Day, 
1900. 

My dear Mr. Kruger. — Your position is at once 
interesting and peculiar, and deserves, as you say, my 
fullest attention. On the one hand (as you well 
remark) you believe you have a right to your in- 
dependence, and that our Government has no moral 
right to interfere in your domestic affairs. You speak 
warmly of Mr. Chamberlain and describe him as lack- 
ing in common morality or (as we put it) in breeding. 
I think you are hardly fair. Mr. Chamberlain has 
his own morality, and in that summing up of all ethics 
which we in England call " manners," he is indis- 
tinguishable from other gentlemen of our class. He 
has had a great deal to bear and he has latterly borne 
it in silence. It is hardly the part of a generous foe 
to taunt him now. I fear you look upon these 
matters a little narrowly and tend to accept one 
aspect as the absolute. The truth is that international 
morality must always be largely Utilitarian, and in a 
very interesting little book by Beeker it is even doubted 
whether what we call " ethics " have any independent 
existence. This new attitude (which we call " moral 
anarchism ") has lately cast a great hold upon our 
younger men and is full of interesting possibilities. 



ON REVELATIONS 157 

If you meet Milner you should discuss the point with 
him. I assure you this school is rapidly ousting the 
old " comparative-positive " in which he and Curzon 
were trained. There is a great deal of self-realization 
going on also. Lord Mestenvaux (whom you have 
doubtless met — he was a director of the Johannesberg 
Alcohol Concession) is of my opinion. 

Believe me, my dear Mr. Kruger, with the fullest 
and warmest sympathy for such of your grievances 
as may be legitimate, and with the ardent prayer that 
the result of this deplorable quarrel may turn out to 
be the best for both parties, 

Your affectionate Friend of old days, 

Joshia Lambkin, M.A., 

Fellow and Chaplain. 

V. 

(Telegram.) 
Send orders payable Amsterdam immediate, Liberal 
party clamouring . . . (name illegible) risen to 
ten thousand, market firm and rising. Waste no 
money on comic paper. Not Read. 

(Unsigned.) 
Finally this damning piece of evidence must close 
the terrible series. 

VI. 

To the Rev. Ebenezer Biggs, Capetown. 
The House of Commons, 

April ioth, 1899* 
My dear Sir. — You put me in a very difficult 
position, for, on the one hand, I cannot, and would 



158 THE AFTERMATH 

not, work against the interests of my country, and, 
on the other hand, I am convinced that Mr. Chamber- 
lain is determined to plunge that country into the 
war spoken of by John in Revelations ix. Anything 
I can do for peace I will, but for some reason or 
other the Times will not insert my letters, though I 
write to them twice and sometimes thrice in one day. 
Sir Alfred Milner was once very rude to me. He is a 
weak man morally, mainly intent upon " getting on ; " 
he has agreed since his youth with every single person 
of influence (except myself) whom he happened to 
come across, and is universally liked. I fear that no 
one's private influence can do much. The London 
Press has been bought in a lump by two financiers. 
Perhaps a little waiting is the best thing. There is 
sure to be a reaction, and after all, Mr. Chamberlain 
is a man of a very low order. His mind, I take it, is 
not unlike his face. He thinks very little and very 
clearly ... I have really nothing more to say. 
Always your sincere friend, 

Edward Bayton. 

No one knew better than Dr. Caliban that a Reve- 
lation is but weakened by comment. But the war 
was at its height, and he could not read without 
disgust such words, written in such a place by such 
a man. 

He added the note : 

11 We understand that the law officers of the Crown 
are debating whether or no the concluding sentences 
of this disgraceful letter can be made to come within 
26 Edward III., cap. 37, denning high treason. It is 



ON REVELATIONS I 59 

certainly not a physical attack upon the Person, Con- 
sort, or offspring of the Crown, nor is it (strictly 
speaking) giving aid to the Queen's enemies. On the 
other hand, it is devoutly hoped that the attack on Mr. 
Chamberlain can he made to fall under 32 Henry VIII., 
1, whereby it is felony to strike or ' provoke ' the King's 
servants within the precincts of the Palace. The in- 
famous screed was certainly written in a palace, and 
Mr. Chamberlain is as certainly a servant of the Queen. 
He certainly was provoked — nay nettled. The latter 
clauses of the act, condemning those who attack the 
doctrine of Transubstantiation to be roasted alive, have, 
of course, fallen into desuetude. The earlier, milder, 
and more general clauses stand, and should be enforced." 

Let me not be misunderstood. I think it was an 
error to pen that comment. Strong expressions, used 
in a time of high party feeling, may look exaggerated 
when they survive into quieter times. But if it was 
an error, it was the only error that can be laid to the 
charge of a just and great man in the whole course of 
forty years, during which period he occasionally edited 
as many as five journals at a time. 



SPECIAL PROSE. 



SPECIAL PROSE. 

Mrs. Caliban begged me to add a few words on 
" Sp 3cial Prose," and to subjoin an example of that 
manner. She has suggested for the latter purpose 
Mrs. Railston's i( Appreciation of William Shake- 
speare," written as a preface for the Charing Cross 
Shakespeare in 1897. She has even been at the pains 
of asking Mrs. Railston's leave to have it included in 
this volume, a permission that was at once granted, 
accompanied with the courteous request that Mrs. 
Railston's name, address, and private advertisement 
should accompany the same. 

Were I dependent upon my own judgment alone, 
the wisdom of adding such a division at the close of 
these essays might seem doubtful. Special Prose is 
an advanced kind of literature, too great an attraction 
to which might at first confuse rather than aid the 
student ; and I should hardly make a place for it in a 
straightforward little Text-book. 

Mrs. Caliban's wishes in all matters concerning 
this work must be observed, and I have done what 
she desired me, even to the degree of printing Mrs. 
Railston's advertisement, though I am certain that 
great Authoress does herself harm by this kind of 
insistence . . . It is no business of mine. . . . 



164 THE AFTERMATH 

It is only fair to add that prose of this sort is the 
highest form of our Art, and should be the ultimate 
goal of every reader of this Guide. If, however, the 
student is bewildered in his first attempt to decipher 
it (as he very well may be), my advice to him is this : 
let him mark the point to which he has persevered, 
and then put the whole thing aside until he has had 
some little further practice in English letters. Then 
let him return, fresh from other work, some weeks 
later, and see if he cannot penetrate still further into 
the close-knit texture. Soon he will find it almost 
like his own tongue, and will begin to love and to 
understand. 

Not many months will pass before it will mean to 
him something more than life, as he once imagined, 
could contain. 

Having said so much, let me hasten to obey Mrs. 
Caliban's command. 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

An Appreciation. 

By Margaret Railston. 

How very manifestly well did not Montaigne (I think 
it was) say in his essay upon Value that the " inner 
part of Poesy is whilom hid, whilom bare, and it 
matters little whether it be bare or hidden." That 
was a sentence such as our Wordsworth might have 
quoted at the high court of Plato when the poets were 
arraigned as unworthy to be rooted in his Republic. 
For the most part these dear poets of our tongue will 



SPECIAL PROSE 1 65 

rather have it bare than hidden, leaving the subtleties 
of " The Misanthrope " to another race, and them- 
selves preferring the straight verbal stab of "The 
Idiot Boy" or "Danny Deever ; " so that many of 
us see nothing in the Rhymed Heroics of the Grand 
Siecle. Yet Moliere also had genius. 

" Moliere a du genie et Christian ete beau." 

That sentence given nasally by a Coquelin to a 
theatre-full of People of the Middle-Class should 
convince also us of the Hither-North that flowers 
may blow in any season and be as various as multi- 
plicity may. 

William Shakespeare, without all question and 
beyond any repining, is— or rather was— the first of 
our Poets, and was — or rather is — the first to-day. 
So that, with him for a well and the Jacobean Bible 
for a further spring of effort, our English Poets make 
up (" build " Milton called it) the sounding line. But 
William Shakespeare also is of us : he will have it on 
the surface or not at all ; as a man hastening to 
beauty, too eager to delve by the way. And with it 
all how he succeeds ! What grace and what apprecia- 
tion in epithet, what subtle and sub-conscious effects 
of verb ! What resonant and yet elusive diction ! 
It is true Shakespeare, that line — 

" Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May." 

And that other — 

" Or stoops with the Remover to remove." 

And these are true Shakespeare because in each there 



1 66 THE AFTERMATH 

is we know not what of ivory shod with steel. A 
mixture of the light and the strong, of the subtle 
and the intense rescues his simple words from 
oblivion. But another, not of our blood, would have 
hidden far more ; he shows it all, frankly disdaining 
artifice. 

Also the great Elizabethan needs room for his 
giant limbs, for his frame of thought and his thews of 
diction. Cite him just too shortly, choose but a hair's 
breadth too mickle an ensample of his work, and it is 
hardly Poesy, nay, hardly Prose. Thus you shall 
have Othello — the Moor they call him — betrayed and 
raging, full of an African Anger. What does he say 
of it ? Why very much ; but if you are of those that 
cut out their cameos too finely ; you slip into quoting 
this merely : — 

Oth. Hum ! Hum ! 
And that is not our Shakespeare at all, nor e'en 
our Othello. Oh ! no, it is nothing but a brutish 
I noise, meaning nothing, empty of tragedy, unwished 
for. 

It was Professor Goodie who said that " none 
needed the spaces of repose more than Shakespeare," 
and taught us in these words that the poet must have 
hills and valleys ; must recline if he is to rise. But 
does not Shakespeare, even in his repose, seem to 
create ? The Professor will indeed quote to us the 
mere sprawling leisure of Stratford, and shame us 
with such lines as — 

Mac — The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon, 
Where got'st thou that goose look ? 



SPECIAL PROSE 1 67 

Which is Shakespeare at full length. But we also, 
that are not over sure of Shakespeare's failing, can 
answer him with such excerpts as these : — 

Hen. — Therefore do thou, stiff-set Northumberland, 
Retire to Chester, and my cousin here, 
The noble Bedford, hie to Glo'ster straight 
And give our Royal ordinance and word 
That in this fit and strife of empery 
No loss shall stand account. To this compulsion 
I pledge my sword, my person and my honour 
On the Great Seal of England : so farewell. 
Swift to your charges : nought was ever done 
Unless at some time it were first begun. 

This also is Shakespeare in his repose, but a better 
Shakespeare than he whom the Professor would 
challenge. For though there is here no work or 
strain in the thing, yet it reeks of English. It is like 
the mist over our valleys at evening, so effortless is it 
and so reposeful, and yet so native. Note the climax 
" On the Great Seal of England " and the quaint, 
characteristic folklore of the concluding couplet, with 
its rhyming effect. Note also how sparing is William 
Shakespeare of the strong qualificative, however just 
it may be. For when our moderns will speak hardly 
of "the tolerant kine" or "the under-lit sky," or of 
11 the creeping river like a worm upturned, with silver 
belly stiffened in the grass," though they be by all 
this infinitely stronger, yet are they but the more 
condensed and self-belittled.- Shakespeare will write 
you ten lines and have in all but one just and sharp 
adjective — " stiff-set ; " for the rest they are a common 
highway ; he cares not. 
And here he is in the by-paths ; a meadow of 



1 68 THE AFTERMATH 

Poesy. I have found it hidden away in one of the 
latter plays ; the flowers of his decline : — 

1 ' Fear no more the heat o' the sun, 
Nor the furious winter's rages ; 
Now thine earthly task is done, 
Thou'rt gone home and ta'en thy wages. 
Golden lads and lasses must, 
Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust." 

There is in that a line I swear no one but Shakespeare 
would have dared. u Thou'rt gone home and ta'en 
thy wages." Commonplace ? A text on the wall ? A 
sermon-tag ? All you will, but a frame for glory. 

This then is William Shakespeare in a last word. 
A man at work full of doing ; the F epyov: glad if you 
saw the mark of the chisel ; still more glad if you did 
not see it. And if it be queried why are such things 
written of him ? Why do we of the last and woful 
days turn and return the matter of our past ? We 
say this. Vixen Fortes ; that is, no fame were endur- 
ing save by continued iterance and echo of similar 
praise, nor any life well earned in the public sheets 
that dared not touch on any matter and remodel all. 
It is for ourselves and for William Shakespeare that 
these things are done. For ourselves, that is a 
private thing to hide under the veil of the Home-lofe. 
For William Shakespeare, that is the public duty, 
that his fame may not fail in the noise of new voices. 
And we can borrow from him and return to him what 
he said of another with such distinction of plane and 
i delicate observance of value : — 

11 So long as men shall breathe and eyes can see, 
This lives, and living, this gives life to thee." 



SPECIAL PROSE 1 69 

[Notices in this manner can be furnished at reasonable 
notice upon any poet, preferably a young or a modem poet, 
on the usual terms. The style is produced in seven distinct 
sizes, of which this is No. 3. Please state No. when 
ordering. All envelopes to be addressed. 

Mrs. Margaret Railston, 

c/o Charlie Bernberg, 

48, Upper Gannimore Gardens, 
Shepherd's Bush, W. 

All envelopes to be marked " Appreciation.'" Accounts 
monthly. All cheques to be crossed "Becker, Becker, & 
Bernberg."] 



APPENDIX 



PRICES CURRENT. 

In all ordinary lines Prices were well maintained and 
rising at the outbreak of the Spanish- American War. 
They rose sharply thenceforward till the second week of 
the war in South Africa, since which date they have 
been sagging, touching bed rock in the spring of this 
year (March, 1903). There has been a slight reaction 
since the beginning of the season, but it is not sup- 
ported, and the market is still extremely dull. Patriotic 
Poems have fallen out of sight, and Criticism is going 
begging : in some offices books are no longer given to 
their reviewers : sub- editors have latterly been asked 
to bring their own suppers. The pinch is being felt 
everywhere. Police reports are on piece-work and 
the Religious Column is shut down to half shifts. 
Leader writers have broken from 1100 a year to 300. 
Editors have suffered an all-round cut in wages of 25 
per cent. Publishers' carrying-over days are more 
anxious than ever. Several first-class houses were 
hammered on the last contango, and the Banks are 
calling in loans. Private capital can hardly be 
obtained save for day-to-day transactions, and even 
so at very high rates of interest. The only lines 
that are well maintained are City Articles and Special 
Prose. Snippets are steady. 



174 



THE AFTERMATH 



The following list is taken from Hunter's Hand- 
book, and represents Prices at the close of May : — 

PROSE. 

{Prices in shillings per thousand words). 









Rise or Fall. 


Special Prose 


30/- 


35/- 


Unchanged. 


Street Accidents ... 


10/- 


12/- 


-5/- 


Reviews 


. 7/6 


10/- 


20/- 


Police Court Notices 


• is/- 


I8/- 


-5/- 


Guaranteed Libels 


25/- 


30/- 


-3/- 


Unguaranteed ditto 


5/- 


7/- 


+ 2/" 


Deferred ditto 


■ i4/- 


16/- 


+ 4/- 


Pompous Leaders 


. 8/- 


10/- 


-25/-' 


Smart Leaders 


. 9/- 


11/6 


+ 3/" 


Ten-line Leaderettes 


10/- 


12/. 


Unchanged. 


Political Appeals 


15/- 


17/- 


— 30/- 


Attacks on Foreign Nation 


s 3/- 


3/6 


-48/-!! 


Dramatic Criticism 


20/- 


25/- 


Unchanged. 


Historical Work 


— 


6d.? 


(Practically 
no demand). 


Religious Notes 


"/- 


18/. 


-8/- 


Attacks upon Christianity 


4/- 


4/6 


- 5/- (A 




very heavy fall for this 




kind of matter). 



VERSE. 

(Prices in pence per line). 
Bad Verse . . . No price can be given-very variable, 
Good minor Verse. 3d. (much the same as last year). 
Special Verse ... 1/- (a heavy fall). 



t 



PRICES CURRENT 1 75 

8 . ^ jj | £ 

5 CO N 10 4 6 CO iO yj £ rt J« 

*g vo w o^ ^oo h ro o y o o 

H£ M <r>TfvOCTicn^ > S <■> fe 



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^ * <4 <4? <4* M* <4? M* M* 8 .•« - ° 

« g M .Sgg 

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a 

75 O* 



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O -"Si g rt -^<.^^^^;^ * 2 M 3 ^ 

V ■^^y^oo^'Nco^o^^ -S m S 

vJ ^\ « £ ^hn^9<5 

« §■§ : : i : : . : : E & I -g$ 3 £ 

S -S^ 5 * : ; : * ! * : &H ^-gS'S 3 






r n3 



«|L ~<«0>vOf0.vp.vo 5 •= «'C S ~ ° 

^.h^-^>^> o;^: * I | .SIS •§* 

<=> s Pi MMMfOfO , S I- -^ . O £ 

co M OC* J - Q rt^>, 

-as- 3 



72 « ,.,^^30-GwO'- 



J H* f(|esi »!■* m h|ci <N h|c» t^ 



*q ti © * -*-_£ ++*" «»» t* 



(The Sections dealing with " The Detection of 
Classical Authors " and " The Vivid Presenta- 
tion of History," have been omitted by request of 
the Family. It is perhaps as well.) 



NOTE ON TITLES. 

The young journalist will never make an error as to 
the title of an individual, and his proper style and 
address, if he will but learn to trust the books of 
reference provided by the office. 

They are far more accurate than other works of the 
kind.* Contrast, for instance, Bowley's Peerage and 
Baronetage with Bowley's Register of Events during the 
past year. 

What maybe called " derivative titles " differ in the 
most complicated manner according to the rank of 
the parent. It would be quite impossible for the 
journalist to attempt to learn them. He had far 
better write plain "Lord" and "Lady" where he 
has occasion to, and on all other occasions what- 
soever, " Mr." or, if he prefer the term, " Esquire." 
In conversation no Lord should be addressed as 
" My Lord," but a Bishop should always be so 
addressed ; no Duke should be called " Your Grace " 
to his face, but it is courteous to bestow this honour 
upon an Archbishop. It is still more important to 
avoid the term " milady " in speaking to the consorts 

* They are often inaccurate with regard to the past history of 
the families mentioned, and very often wrong in the spelling of the 
family name ; but these details are furnished by the families them- 
selves, upon whom the responsibility must rest. 

N 



178 THE AFTERMATH 

of the above named, especially in the case of bishops' 
wives, to whom the title does not apply. Baronets, 
on the other hand, must always be addressed as " Sir," 
followed by a Christian name. The omission to do 
this has led to grievous trouble. The principal 
English titles are, Prince, Duke, Marquis, Marquess 
(a more recent creation), Earl, Baron ; then comes a 
division ; then Irish Peers, Baronets, Knights, and 
finally Members of the Victorian Order. 

The principal foreign titles are Count, Viscount 
(which by the way is also an English title, but I 
forgot it), Vidame, Chevalier, Excellency, Graf, Furst, 
Margrave, Baron, Boyar, Monsignor, and Grandee — 
the latter used only in Spain, Ceuta, and the other 
Spanish dominions beyond the seas. 

Imperial titles are: — the Maharajah, the Maharanee, 
the Akon of Swat, the Meresala of Baghirmi, the Oyo 
of Oya, the Allemami of Foutazallam, the Ameer, the 
Emir, the Bally-o-Gum of Abe-o-Kuta,* and others 
too numerous to mention. All these should, in 
general, be addressed as Your Highness. 

Colonials are called " The Honourable." 

* I omit the ex-Jumhi of Koto-Koto, a rebellious upstart whom 
the Imperial Government has very properly deposed. 



NOTE ON STYLE. 

One does well to have by one a few jottings that will 
enable one to add to one's compositions what one 
call's style in case it is demanded of one by an editor. 
I would not insist too much upon the point ; it is 
simple enough, and the necessity of which I speak 
does not often crop up. But editors differ very much 
among themselves, and every now and then one gets 
a manuscript returned with the note, " please improve 
style," in blue pencil, on the margin. If one had no 
idea as to the meaning of this a good deal of time 
might be wasted, so I will add here what are con- 
sidered to be the five principal canons of style or 
good English. 

^The first canon, of course, is that style should have 
Distinction. Distinction is a quality much easier to 
attain than it looks. It consists, on the face of it, 
in the selection of peculiar words and their arrange- 
ment in an odd and perplexing order, and the objection 
is commonly raised that such irregularities cannot be 
rapidly acquired. Thus the Chaplain of Barford, 
preaching upon style last Holy Week, remarked 
"there is a natural tendency in stating some useless 
and empty thing to express oneself in a common or 
vulgar manner." That is quite true, but it is a 

N— 2 



l8o THE AFTERMATH 

tendency which can easily be corrected, and I think 
that that sentence I have just quoted throws a flood 
of light on the reverend gentleman's own deficiencies. 

Of course no writer is expected to write or even to 
speak in this astonishing fashion, but what is easier 
than to go over one's work and strike out ordinary 
words ? There should be no hesitation as to what to 
put in their place. Halliwell's " Dictionary of 
Archaic and Provincial Words " will give one all the 
material one may require. Thus " lettick " is charm- 
ing Rutlandshire for " decayed " or " putrescent," 
and " swinking " is a very good alternative for 
11 working." It is found in Piers Plowman. / 

It is very easy to draw up a list of such unusual 
words, each corresponding with some ordinary one, 
and to pin it up where it will meet your eye. In all 
this matter prose follows very much the same rules 
as were discovered and laid down for verse on page 
86. 

The second canon of style is that it should be 
obscure, universally and without exception. The dis- 
turbance of the natural order of words to which I have 
just alluded is a great aid, but it is not by any means 
the only way to achieve the result. One should also 
on occasion use several negatives one after the other, 
and the sly correction of punctuation is very useful. 
I have known a fortune to be made by the omission 
of a full stop, and a comma put right in between a 
noun and its adjective was the beginning of Daniel 
Witton's reputation. A foreign word misspelt is also 
very useful. Still more useful is some allusion to some 



NOTE ON STYLE l8l 

unimportant historical person or event of which your 
reader cannot possibly have heard. 

As to the practice, which has recently grown up, of 
writing only when one is drunk, or of introducing 
plain lies into every sentence, they are quite unworthy 
of the stylist properly so called, and can never per- 
manently add to one's reputation. 
r- The third canon of style is the occasional omission of 
a verb or of the predicate. Nothing is more agree- 
ably surprising, and nothing more effective. I have 
known an honest retired major-general, while reading 
a novel in his club, to stop puzzling at one place for 
an hour or more in his bewilderment at this delightful 
trick, and for years after he would exclaim with 
admiration at the style of the writer. 
^-/The fourth canon of style is to use metaphors of a 
striking, violent, and wholly novel kind, in the place 
of plain statement : as, to say " the classics were 
grafted on the standing stirp of his mind rather than 
planted in its soil," which means that the man had 
precious little Greek, or again, " we propose to 
canalize, not to dam the current of Afghan develop- 
ment," which means that the commander of our 
forces in India strongly refused to campaign beyond 
the Khyber. 

This method, which is invaluable for the purpose 
of flattering the rich, is very much used among the 
clergy, and had its origin in our great Universities, ; 
where it is employed to conceal ignorance, and tof 
impart tone and vigour to the tedium of academicj 
society. The late Bishop of Barchester was a past 



1 82 THE AFTERMATH 

I master of this manner, and so was Diggin, the war 

I correspondent, who first talked of a gun " coughing " 

at one, and was sent home by Lord Kitchener for 

tying- 

W* , ]\)' The fifth canon of style is, that when you are bored 
I with writing and do not know what to say next, you 
should hint at unutterable depths of idea by the 
introduction of a row of asterisks. 



THE ODE. 

The writing of Odes seems to have passed so com- 
pletely out of our literary life, that I thought it 
inadvisable to incorporate any remarks upon it with 
the standing part of my book, but I cannot refrain 
from saying a few words upon it in the Appendix, 
since I am convinced that it is destined to play a 
great part in the near future. 

I will take for my example the well-known Ode 
(almost the only successful modern example of this 
form of composition) which was sung on the beach 
.at Calshott Castle, by a selected choir, on the return 
/of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain from South Africa ; and I 
will use some passages from it in order to emphasize 
the leading principle that the Ode depends for its effective- 
ness almost entirely upon the music accompanying it. 

Thus, Mr. Daniel Witton's opening lines : 

" What stranger barque from what imperial shores 
The angry Solent dares to what mysterious goal ? " 

would seem tame enough were it not for the wonder- 
ful rising of the notes, which accompany them ; and 
the famous outburst : 

" She to Southampton steers ! " 
is equally dependent upon the crash of music and the 
combined voices of the whole choir. It is difficult for 
us, who have heard it rendered in the Albert Hall, to 



184 THE AFTERMATH 

appreciate what the words would be without this 
adventitious aid. Even the lovely single line, 

" Lift up your head, Southampton, dry your honourable tears," 
would be less without the delicate soprano floating 
above its syllables. 

I will admit that the passage on the body-guard of 
National Scouts is very fine, but then, precisely in 
proportion as it is effective qua literature, it fails to 
impress when accompanied by music, though the 
author of the score was wise enough to set it to a 
somewhat monotonous recitative. If the student will 
read the lines slowly to himself, first with, and then 
without, the notes, he will see what I mean. 

" And who more fit than they 
Whose better judgment led them to betray 
An aged leader and a failing cause 
Because — 
Because they found it pay." 

Mr. Daniel Witton did not write that word " because " 

twice over in his original manuscript. He put it in 

twice to please the musician (whose ignorance of the 

English tongue was a great handicap throughout), 

and, as I at least think, he made an error in so doing. 

All that passage where the great politician 

" . . . taking off his hat," 

comes into -the palace at Pretoria, where 

M ... in awful state alone, 
Alone, the scientific Monist sat, 
Who guards our realm, extends its narrow bounds, 
And to achieve his end, 
Is quite prepared to spend 

The inconceivably imperial sum of twice three hundred times five 
hundred thousand pounds," 



THE ODE 185 

shows the grave difficulty of wedding the verse to 
the music. The last line is intolerably clumsy, when 
read without the air accompanying it ; and the whole 
illustrates very well my contention that music should 
be the chief thing in the composition of an ode, and 
that the libretto should be entirely subservient to it. 

A still better example is found in the great chorus 
11 Pretoria," which begins — 

M Pretoria with her hundred towers 
Acknowledges his powers," 

and " Johannesburg," which ends — 

V Heil I heil ! hoch ! heil ! du ubermenslich' wohl-gebornen Graf 
von Chamberlein, 
While underground, 
While underground, 

Such rare and scattered Kaffirs as are found 
Repeat the happy, happy, happy, happy sound." 

And of course the lyric at the end — 

" All in his train de luxe 
Reading selected books, 

Including Conan Doyle's ingenious fiction 
And popular quota- 
Tions, verses by the way 

For which he has a curious predilection, 
And Mr. Werther's work 
Called ■ England shall not shirk,' 

Or ' The Cape to Cairo, Kairouan and Cadiz, 
And « Burke,' and ■ Who is Who,' 
And ' Men and Women ' too, 

And * Etiquette for Gentlemen and Ladies,' " 
Et cetera, et cetera. 

All that lyric depends entirely for its effects upon the 
little Venetian air taken from Sullivan, who himself 
took it from Verdi, who got it from a Gondolier. The 
words by themselves have no beauty whatsoever. 



1 86 THE AFTERMATH 

Indeed, I think in the whole Ode there is but one 
exception to the rule I have laid down, and that is at 
the very end, where they sing of the accomplished 
task and, in a fine hyperbole, of the " Great story 
that shall shake the affrighted years." 

The last five lines are such good music and such 
good verse that I cannot dissociate one from the 
other : — 

Chorus. And now returns he, turns, turns he to his own — 

Trombone. Ah, maddened with delight, 

I welcome him upon the loud trombone. 

The Bass Drum. I, in more subtle wise, 

Upon the big bass drum. 

The Tenor. And I upon the trembling flute, that shrieks and 
languishes and dies. 

All Three. Welcome, and make a widowed land rejoice : 
Welcome, attuned voice ; — 
Sweet eyes ! 

It is a very fine ending, and I congratulate Mr. 
Daniel Witton upon it most sincerely. . . . 

###### 

It reminds one of the Bacchae. 

###### 

Should the student desire to attempt something of 
the kind for himself, he cannot do better than to in- 
vite a musical friend and compose the ode strictly in 
conjunction with him ; neither should write separately 
from the other, and let there be no quarrels or tan- 
trums, but let each be ready to give way. 

I suggest, as a subject for this exercise, a Funeral 
Ode upon the same statesman, to be sung when 
occasion serves. 



ON REMAINDERS AND PULPING. 

Should the student aspire to collect his journalistic 
work, or the less ephemeral part of it, into book 
form, he will do well to apply to some old and estab- 
lished firm of publishers, who will give him a 
reasonable estimate for its production, plus the cost of y 
advertising, warehousing, wear and tear, office 
expenses, etc., etc., to which must be added the, 
customary Fee. 

The book so issued will be sent to the Press for 
notice and review, and will, some weeks later, be 
either Rejrisindered or Pulled. It is important to 
have a clear idea of these processes which accompany 
an author throughout his career. 

A book is said to be Remaindered when it is sold to i 
the secondhand bookseller in bulk ; 10 per cent, of 
the sums so received, less the cost of cartage to and 
fro from shop to shop, and the wages of the Persuader J 
who attempts to sell the volumes, is then credited to 
the author in his account, which is usually pressed ! 
upon the completion of the transaction. 

The less fortunate must be content with Pulping, f 
In the midst of their chagrin they will be consoled by 1 
the thought that their book enjoys a kind of resurrec- ' 
tion, and will reappear beneath some other, and — 



1 88 THE AFTERMATH 

who knows ?— perhaps some nobler form. The very 
paper upon which these words are printed may once 
have formed part of a volume of verse, or of Imperial- 
ist pamphlets subsidised by the South African 
Women's League. 

A book is said to be Pulped when it is sold at so 
many pence the thousand copies to the Pulpers* 
for Pulping. The transformation is effected as 
follows : — First the covers are thoroughly and skil- 
fully torn off the edition by girls known as " Scalpers " 
or "Skinners," and the Poems (or whatnot), after 
going through this first process, are shot in batches 
of twenty-four into a trough, which communicates by 
an inclined plane with open receptacles known 
technically as " bins." Hence the sheets are taken 
out by another batch of hands known as " feeders" — 
for it is their duty to "feed " the marvellous machine 
which is the centre of the whole works. The Poems 
(as we may imagine them to be) are next thrown by 
the " feeders," with a certain rapid and practised 
gesture, into a funnel-shaped receiver, where they are 
caught by Six Large Rows of strong Steel Teeth f 
known as the " Jaws," which are so arranged as just 
barely to miss each other ; these work alternatively 



* Messrs. Ibbotson, of Fetter-lane, and Charlton and Co., of St. 
Anne's, are the best-known Pulpers. 

f Until Lord Balton (then Sir Charles Quarry) invented this part 
of the machine, poems, apologies for Christianity, &c, in fact all 
kinds of books, had to be torn laboriously into minute pieces by 
hand. It is difficult for us to realise now-a-days what exertion this 
involved. We live in an age of machinery ! 



ON REMAINDERS AND PULPING 1 89 

back and forth, and reduce the hardest matter to 
shreds in an incredibly short time. 

The shreds so formed fall on to a wide endless band, 
which carries them on into the " bowl," where they 
are converted under a continual stream of boiling 
water, into a kind of loose paste. Lest any trace of 
the original Poetic (or Prose) composition could re- 
main to trouble the whiteness of the rapidly forming 
mixture, this water contains a 30% solution of Sardonic 
Oxide, two kilogrammes of which will bleach one 
thousand kilos of shredded Poems or Essays in from 
thirty-five to forty minutes. When the Poems or 
whatnot have been finally reduced to a white and 
formless mass, they are termed pulp and this pulp is 
laid out into frames, to be converted once more into 
paper, Art, glazed, and medium. 

This principle of " the Conservation of Paper " or, 
as Lord Balton (Sir Charles Quarry) has himself 
called it, " the Circulation of Literature," is naturally 
more developed among the Anglo-Saxon peoples than 
upon the Continent. The patriotic reader will be 
pleased to hear that whereas of existing German 
books barely 35% are pulped within the year, of French 
books not 27%, and of Italian but 15% ; of our total 
production — which is far larger— no less than 73% are 
restored to their original character of useful blank 
paper within the year, ready to receive further im- 
pressions of Human Genius and to speed on its 
accelerated round the progress of Mankind. 

Amen. 



INDEX. 

Abingdon, History of, by Lord Charles Gamber, see 

Pulping, p. 187. 
Action, Combination of, with Plot, Powerful Effect of in 

Modern Novels, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Advertisement, Folly and Waste of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Affection, Immoderate, for our own Work, Cure of, see 

Pulping, p. 187. 
All Souls, College of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Amusements of Printers and Publishers, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Art, Literary, Ultimate End of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Astonishment of, Young Poet, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Authorship, Vanity of Human, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Baronets, Family Histories of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Benjamin Kidd, see Kidd. 

Beaune, Wine of, Its Consoling Qualities, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Beotius, Decline in Sale of Works of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Bilge, Literature so Termed, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Bird, The Honourable, his " Essay on Popery," see Pulping, 

p. 187. 
Books, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Bore, Books that, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Boston, Effect of, upon American Culture, see Pulping, 

p. 187. 

Cabs, Necessity of, to Modern Publisher, see Pulping, p. 

187. 
Cabs to Authors, Unwarrantable Luxury, see Pulping, p. 187. 



I92 THE AFTERMATH 

Call, Divine, to a Literary Career, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Curse, Publishers a, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Curzon, Lord, his Literary Works, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Damn, Expletive, When Used, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Damn, Thirteen Qualifications of Same, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Daniel in Lion's Den Compared to a Just Author, see 

Pulping, p. 187. 
Dogs, Reputation Going to the, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Dowagers, Novels Written by, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Doyle, Conan, see O'Doyle. 

Dozen, Trade Term for Thirteen, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Dreyfus, Literature upon, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Education, Futility of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Eighty Club, see Female Suffrage, also Suffrage. 
Elders, see Suzanna. 

England, Source and Wealth of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Evil, Origin of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Fame, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Fate, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Finesse, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Finland, Doom of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Francis of Assisi, Saint, Modern Books on, see Pulping, 

p. 187. 
Fuss, Folly of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Genius, Indestructibility of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Hanging, Suicide by, when Caused by Failure, see Pulping, 

p. 187. 
Heaven, Monkish Fables upon, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Hell, ditto, see Pulping, p. 187. 



INDEX 193 

Howl, The Sudden, When Excusable, see Pulping, p. 187. 
u Huguenot," pseudonym, his " Influence of Jesuits in 
Europe," see Pulping, p. 187. 

India, Lord Curzon's Views on, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Inspiration, Sole Source of Poetry, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Jesuits, Their Reply to " Huguenot," see Pulping, p. 187. 

Kidd, Benjamin, Philosophy of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Kruger, Memoirs of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Lnmb, Charles, Centenary Edition of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

London, Fascination of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

" Lunaticus," his Essays on Foreign Politics, see Pulping, 

p. 187. 
Luzon, "How Old Glory Floats Over" (Putnam & Co., 3 

dollars), see Pulping, p. 187. 

"Mamma," "Darling Old," Story for Children, by the 

Countess of K , see Pulping, p. 187. 

Mache, Papier, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Milner, Lord, Proclamations of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Moulds, Modern Books Printed from, see Pulping, p. 187. 
" Mucker," " To Come a," Publishers' slang, see Pulping, 

p. 187. 

Name, Real, of "Diplomaticus," see Pulping, p. 187. 

O'Doyle, Conan, Political Works of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Opper, Caricatures of England by, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Paper, How Procured, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Profits, Half, System of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Pulping, p. 187. 

o 



194 THE AFTERMATH 

Queen of Roumania, Verses by, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Rhodes, Cecil, Numerous Lives of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Rot, Inevitable End of, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Rubbish, Common Fate of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Sabatier, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Soul, Human, What is the, by James Heading, see Pulping, 

p. 187. 
Suffrage, Female, Arguments For and Against, by Members 

of the Eighty Club, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Suzanna and the Elders, Sacred Poem, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Tax, Bread, Repeal of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Times Newspaper, History of War in South Africa, see 

Pulping, p. 187. 
Times, Obituary Notices of, Reprinted, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Times, All Republications from, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Transvaal, Truth About, by Patrick Fitz Patrick, see Pulping, 

p. 187. 

Uganda Railway, Balance-sheet of, see Pulping, p. 187. 

Vanitas, Vanitatum, see Vanitatum. 
Vanitatum, Vanitas, see Pulping, p. 187. 
Vindex, his Great Biography of Cecil Rhodes, see Pulping, 
p. 187. 

W. X. Y. Z., see Pulping, p. 187. 

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